Arizona inmate defense: No kidnapping DNA evidence
KINGMAN, Ariz. — A defense lawyer for an Arizona inmate on trial in the hijacking of two truck drivers told a jury in Kingman on Wednesday that there is no physical evidence linking the prisoner to the crimes of which he is accused.
No DNA, fingerprints, forensic evidence or surveillance link John McCluskey, 46, to the kidnapping he is charged with, public defender Jason Steffen said.
An escape last July from Arizona State Prison in Golden Valley sparked a three-week, nationwide manhunt for McCluskey, two other inmates and a woman who acknowledged throwing cutting tools onto the grounds of the medium-security prison to help the men escape.
McCluskey, another inmate and Casslyn Welch face separate murder charges in New Mexico, where they are accused of killing an Oklahoma couple while on the lam. The third inmate was caught separately in a shootout in Colorado a day after escaping.
Welch and inmate Tracy Province resolved their Arizona charges without trials.
Deputy County Attorney Victoria Stazio told jurors in her opening statement that McCluskey cut through a perimeter fence, ran into the desert and confronted the drivers as they were pulled over, switching seats in their truck during a journey from California to Georgia.
McCluskey, with Welch and another inmate, threatened the truckers with guns and drove them roughly 150 miles to Flagstaff, leaving them at a gas station, Stazio said. McCluskey drove the truck, she said.
Along the way, the group stopped at a gas station to pick up supplies, with surveillance showing Welch buying items that were later found in the truck, Stazio said.
McCluskey also told the drivers, “You guys are lucky; you’re alive because of her,” Stazio told the jury.
McCluskey had been serving a 15-year prison term for attempted second-degree murder, aggravated assault and discharge of a firearm when he escaped. He previously did time in Pennsylvania related to a string of armed robberies in the 1990s.
The prosecution called its first witnesses Wednesday in a trial that is expected to last until Friday. The truck drivers, who require interpreters, probably will testify today , Stazio said.
