KISS Murder Trial Update: Cusano Case Focuses On Car, Bloody Clothes

On the second day of testimony in the murder trial of a man accused of killing the ex-wife of former KISS guitarist Vinnie Vincent, a Hartford police detective described finding bloody clothing in Gregory McArthur's apartment. McArthur, 42, is accused of killing Annemarie Cusano, a Shelton mother of two, in January 1998.

In the morning session, a New Britain man testified that he unknowingly rented Cusano's burgundy 1996 Mazda 626 from McArthur in exchange for cocaine, according to New Haven Register.

Darryl Wilson testified that early on the morning of Jan. 3, the day after police say Cusano was murdered, he and a friend rented the car from McArthur in exchange for about $50 worth of cocaine.

Wilson said McArthur told him the car was not stolen.

"I didn't want to rent no stolen car, that's crazy. (McArthur) said it wasn't stolen he said it was his girlfriend's car," Wilson said.

Wilson said that when it came time to return the vehicle, McArthur did not show up. Later that week, Wilson said, he saw a picture of the car on the news.

"Everything just hit me. … I was in a stolen car, a lady (was) missing, and I'm driving around in her car," Wilson said.

Wilson said he took the car to Pliny Street in Hartford where he wiped it down for fingerprints and left the keys in the ignition. He said he did not go to the police because he was scared.

Cusano, who was 42, was a secretary who worked part time for an escort service. Police allege that she went to McArthur's boarding house at 550 Prospect Ave. on an escort call.

Police have said McArthur confessed to strangling Cusano after she threatened him with a knife. Earlier he told police that drug dealers attacked him and Cusano the night of her disappearance, stabbing him and killing her. Cusano's body was found nearly two years later in a wooded area in Suffield.

In the afternoon session Monday, Senior State's Attorney Gary Nicholson asked Hartford Police Detective Timothy Shaw to unseal and open more than a dozen brown paper bags full of evidence collected from McArthur's room.

With the families of both Cusano and McArthur watching, Shaw revealed the contents of the evidence bags, including two white Hanes T-shirts, a pair of green jockey shorts, a black Beverly Hills polo club sweatshirt, gray boxer shorts and a blue sweatshirt.

All of those items, Shaw testified, appeared to have bloodstains on them and were either punctured or slashed in a manner "consistent with knife wounds."

Neither the prosecution nor public defenders Fred DeCaprio and David Smith, however, identified whether the blood belonged to Cusano or McArthur.

The trial continued yesterday in Superior Court in Hartford, with Judge Joseph Koletsky presiding.

(Thanks: fullshred)