The 1981 trial of John Dolenc, accused of killing his wife Patricia, was rife with factual controversies.

Patricia Dolenc, 25, was known as an attractive, unassuming young woman in a bad marriage when she was found dead outside her Academy Avenue apartment in Mt. Lebanon on Tuesday, July 8, 1975. Click photo for larger image. DNA EVIDENCE has freed more than 160 Americans facing death or long prison sentences for crimes committed before DNA testing was available. Yet it remains difficult in Pennsylvania for convicted felons to get the DNA tests they believe would prove their innocence. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette began a three-part series yesterday that examines this issue, focusing on two murder cases from Allegheny County. Yesterday: Convicts find DNA tests to be tough sell to judges Today: The state Supreme Court is considering the case of John Dolenc. Its ruling promises to clarify when post-conviction DNA tests must be ordered. Tomorrow: The state collects DNA samples from every convicted felon and checks them against evidence from unsolved crimes. But it rarely uses the samples to check against evidence from the crimes for which the felons were convicted.

But his lawyer told the jury one thing was certain: Since Mr. Dolenc and his wife had the same blood type, there was no way to tie blood splatters found near her body to the former South Hills man.

"Well, I can stand here and say I want you to infer it's John because he had a cut on his finger," countered Kim Riester, the Allegheny County assistant district attorney who prosecuted Mr. Dolenc. "And then you decide if it was Patty's (blood), was it John's or somebody else's."

Mr. Dolenc was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Twenty-four years later, the same prosecutor's office under different leadership has fought Mr. Dolenc's request to conduct DNA tests on as many as 79 blood-stained specimens found at the crime scene.

DNA tests were not available in 1981, but now they could determine whether "it was Patty's (blood), was it John's or somebody else's."

The district attorney contends that other circumstantial evidence was enough to convict Mr. Dolenc, anyway. The defense argues otherwise.

Mr. Dolenc is one of 15 people in Allegheny County seeking DNA tests under a 2002 state law that allows anyone facing the death penalty or life in prison to request DNA tests that could prove their "actual innocence."

Only two have been granted. One resulted in the exoneration of a Homewood man who had served nearly 19 years for a rape conviction. Test results are pending in the other. Three requests have been denied, and the rest remain under consideration.

But it is Mr. Dolenc's case, now before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, that has raised the knotty issue of exactly how conclusive DNA tests must promise to be before a judge should order them to assess a convict's claim of innocence.

Last year, Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Donald Machen ordered DNA tests in Mr. Dolenc's case. But the Pennsylvania Superior Court reversed his ruling, saying that blood tests were unlikely to exonerate the former heating and cooling worker.

Now, both sides hope the state's highest court will clarify the meaning of the words "actual innocence" in the 2002 law.

"That's the question," said Scott Coffey, Mr. Dolenc's lawyer. "In this context, what is needed to prove 'actual innocence.'"

Christopher Connors, Allegheny County first assistant district attorney, seeks clarification, as well, but said that whatever DNA tests might show, they couldn't prove Mr. Dolenc's innocence, actual or otherwise.

"The blood evidence at trial stated it could have been the victim, the defendant or someone else's and it was clear to the jury that it was not a conclusive piece of evidence," Mr. Connors said.

In fact, prosecutor Riester did lean on the blood evidence in Mr. Dolenc's trial, but it was just one of many questionable elements in the case, according to an investigation by the Post-Gazette and the Innocence Institute of Point Park University.

Dear John letter

	Post-Gazette file photo John Dolenc believes DNA testing of evidence found at the scene of his estranged wife's murder would exonerate him. His request is being considered by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which is expected to use his case to help define when judges should order DNA tests that could exonerate convicts sentenced to life in prison or death. Click photo for larger image.

With a simple note that said, "Goodbye John," 25-year-old Patricia Dolenc left the couple's 1 1/2-year-old marriage in 1975 and moved to an apartment on Academy Avenue in Mt. Lebanon. She had complained of verbal and physical abuse.

A week later, Mr. Dolenc said, they had agreed to meet in Bridgeville on a Saturday night, but she did not show up. Police later would contend that he abducted and murdered her that night.

Three days later, her body was found behind her apartment. Her jeans were removed and folded next to her, their crotch torn out. Her bra and tank top were strung across her right wrist. She wore no shoes and her purse was still in her apartment. A 37-pound blood-stained slab of cement covered her face. A used Band-Aid and splatters of blood covered the ground.

Because of the couple's marital problems, police immediately considered Mr. Dolenc a prime suspect, but he offered an alibi. He said he'd been bar hopping in Bridgeville with his uncle that Saturday night.

Mr. Dolenc was able to prove that he'd been at some bars, but the police didn't check them all. The prosecution later argued that he would have had time to murder his wife between some of the visits, anyway.

While the police would develop other suspects -- including one man who was charged and released in a single day -- the investigation went nowhere for six years. They weren't even certain of the day Ms. Dolenc had been killed.

Police and prosecutors eventually became convinced that Ms. Dolenc was killed on Saturday, July 5, 1975.

But two of Mr. Dolenc's relatives later told a private investigator, hired by Mr. Dolenc's attorney, and the Post-Gazette that they saw her two days later in an Oakdale bank. Receipts show that Ms. Dolenc and one of Mr. Dolenc's aunts conducted business in the bank that day.

Two other acquaintances also told the Post-Gazette that they saw Ms. Dolenc on July 7 at a store where she bought two cans of tuna. One of the men who saw her there said he also had beer and pizza with her later that day at a local pub.

During the trial, a forensic pathologist testified that Ms. Dolenc probably was dead for less than 72 hours when she was found laying face down on July 8. Her body was still warm and rigor mortis -- which usually disappears within 12 hours of death -- was still present.

Not long after Ms. Dolenc's death, a former boyfriend named Ed Zombeck began to hover around the case, telling Mr. Dolenc that he was conducting his own investigation.

At the time, Mr. Dolenc did not know that his wife's father had reported Mr. Zombeck to the police for threatening her after she broke off their relationship.

Thanks to Mr. Zombeck and Mt. Lebanon police, Mr. Dolenc said he learned about the crime scene and other elements of the murder that police later said only the killer would know.

"Ed Zombeck kept turning up during the investigation like a bad penny," one Mt. Lebanon police officer said later.

Charges are filed

Six months after the murder, Mt. Lebanon police charged Mr. Zombeck with the crime after a federal drug agent told them that Mr. Zombeck's wife had screamed "tell them you did it" in the background as the agent and Mr. Zombeck were talking on the telephone.

The charges were dismissed later that day. Mr. Zombeck denied involvement. He said his wife had mental problems and made the statement during a domestic dispute.

Mr. Dolenc went on with his life, building a successful heating and cooling business in the South Hills until murder charges were filed against him in 1981.

The case rested on the theory that Mr. Dolenc had killed his wife on that Saturday night, July 5, and then positioned her body behind her new apartment to make it look like a sexual assault. The case was dismissed for insufficient evidence during a coroner's inquest.

Eight months later, the charges were re-filed. Mr. Dolenc went on trial for his wife's death six years after it occurred.

Trial and error

Building a case on circumstantial evidence, the prosecution focused on crime scene evidence like the blood-laden Band-Aid and the 79 splatters of blood that were consistent with the blood type of both Mr. and Ms. Dolenc.

There was a partially smoked Kool cigarette, which was not Mr. Dolenc's brand. Saliva taken from it did not match Mr. Dolenc.

The prosecutor suggested the blood belonged to Mr. Dolenc, and he paraded a series of witnesses who testified about the couple's marital problems. He pounded away at minor inconsistencies in statements Mr. Dolenc had given police about his movements on the Saturday night when police believed Ms. Dolenc was murdered.

While Mr. Dolenc claimed he was with his uncle that night, his uncle testified he had suffered a brain injury since Ms. Dolenc's murder and could not remember dates, times or events.

Mr. Dolenc also was challenged on how his sister ended up with a bracelet owned by his dead wife. He and his sister said it was a gift from Ms. Dolenc just before she died.

Mr. Dolenc's lawyer did not know at that time about the four people who claim to have seen Ms. Dolenc after she was supposedly killed. But he did get Allegheny County Coroner Joshua Perper to admit on the stand that it was unlikely her body had been in the parking lot for three days because of its state of decomposition.

The only hard evidence was the blood, all of which was type A. It could not be determined with forensic testing at that time whether the blood belonged to only one Dolenc or the other, or whether it included drops from someone else.

Mr. Dolenc's attorney, Wayne DeLuca, seized on the tenuousness of the evidence in his closing argument to the jury:

"Circumstantial evidence. A Band-Aid, cigarette, bracelet. These are classic pieces of physical evidence, circumstantial at best. Take a look at the Band-Aid first. Type A blood. Consistent with Patricia's, consistent with John's, unfortunately, also consistent with 380,000 other people that live in Allegheny County. What does that tell us? Is that good, solid circumstantial evidence?"

Along with Mr. Dolenc's history of wife abuse and inconsistent statements, prosecutor Riester focused on the blood in his closing statement:

"The blood does match Patty, and it matches the defendant. Now, Mr. DeLuca says, well, I want you to infer it's Patty because she has a Band-Aid. Well, I can stand here and say I want you to infer it's John because he had a cut on his finger," he said.

The jury convicted John Dolenc of first-degree murder on Sept. 21, 1981, and he was sentenced to life in prison.

The DNA fight

After a series of failed appeals and civil actions, Mr. Dolenc last year requested a court order to run DNA tests on the blood found at the crime scene.

Mr. Coffey, his current lawyer, claimed it is the only significant physical evidence:

"If none of the evidence, including the Band-Aid and the cigarette butt, contains petitioner's DNA, then he could not have come in contact with the victim or have been present at the crime scene."

Mr. Coffey also pointed out that if a third party's blood were identified, it would strongly suggest Mr. Dolenc's innocence.

The Allegheny County District Attorney's Office said the blood probably has degraded and could not be accurately tested after all these years. But the heart of its argument against DNA testing was that excluding Mr. Dolenc from the scene would not prove his innocence.

The issue now rests with the state Supreme Court. And Mr. Dolenc remains imprisoned at the State Correctional Institution at Fayette, still maintaining his innocence.

In a telephone call last week from Florida, Mr. Dolenc's father, John Dolenc Sr., said his son hopes the DNA matter will catapult all of the issues in the case back into court.

"The whole thing is a damn mess," he said. "Like I told my son, if someone reads this transcript, they'd have a real headache, because this case is really screwed up."