Christopher McCowen Found Guilty of Murder on Cape

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Jury finds defendant guilty in Worthington trial on Cape Cod

By Megan Tench, Globe Staff, and Andrew Ryan, Globe Correspondent

BARNSTABLE -- A jury found a trash collector guilty today of the brutal rape and murder of fashion writer Christa Worthington after a sensational trial in a case that thrust a sleepy beach town on Cape Cod into the national spotlight.

The panel of seven women and five men found Christopher M. McCowen guilty on all counts. The jurors found McCowen guilty of murder with extreme atrocity and cruelty and murder while committing felonies -- aggravated rape and burglary.

After five days without a verdict, the jury had to restart deliberations when the judge removed a juror an ordered an alternate to take her place on the panel.

With the addition of the alternate, the jury began deliberating from scratch on Tuesday. They shifted through almost three weeks of testimony from a 39-month police investigation that included a controversial dragnet that collected DNA from all the men in the small town of Truro, near the tip of Cape Cod.

Worthington, 46, was found in her home in January 2002 lying half-naked on the kitchen floor, dead from a stab wound to the chest. Her toddler, Ava, was unhurt but smeared with her mother's blood.

The jury could have convicted McCowen of a variety of charges, including aggravated rape and aggravated burglary. For Worthington's death, the jury had to decide between first- or second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, or battery manslaughter.

Investigators alleged that DNA led them to McCowen. Prosecutor Robert Welsh presented testimony from investigators who said that McCowen, who first denied knowing the victim, later claimed he and Worthington had consensual sex the night she died after he was presented with DNA evidence.

In a six-hour interrogation that the defense disputed, McCowen, according to police, said he punched Worthington in the face, stomped on her, and wiped down her body after she died, according to investigators.

But police said McCowen never admitted to Worthington's murder and claimed that his friend, Jeremy Frazier, was the real killer. On the stand, Frazier denied having anything to do with Worthington's death.

Defense attorney Robert George disputed McCowen's statements from the six-hour interview, which was not recorded.

During deliberations, Barnstable Superior Court Judge Gary A. Nickerson responded to a question from the jury about recording interrogations. Nickerson told the panel that police had the option to tape an interview as long as the subject knew they were being recorded.

In closing arguments, George told jurors that his client was the victim of desperate and overzealous detectives. The police botched the investigation, George said, and then manipulated the evidence to fit their theory that McCowen stabbed her after drinking that Friday night in January 2002.

George claimed that Worthington was alive and well Saturday morning until someone else, a white man driving a dark car, killed her. Worthington's body was discovered in her Truro home on Sunday, Jan. 6, 2002.

He said that police had failed to investigate a report by an eyewitness who said he saw a white man in a dark-colored car speed away from Worthington's driveway the day before her body was discovered.

Boston Globe City & Region Desk at 11:32 AM