By Britney Milazzo
The Tonawanda News
LOCKPORT —
Thursday was Renee Greco’s 26th birthday and the first day in the trial of the teenager accused of killing her.
The trial of Anthony J. Allen, 19, got under way after a two-week jury selection. The Rochester teen is accused of bludgeoning Greco to death at an East Avenue, Lockport, group home June 8, 2009.
Attorneys made their opening statements, then prosecutors called their first two witnesses: Lockport police Lt. Doug Haak who was the first officer on scene last year, and New Directions Youth and Family Services supervisor Tamara Marie Sloper.
Greco’s tearful family and friends sat through the trial Thursday all wearing homemade bracelets that said “Shine on Renee,” and said this was not they way they wanted to celebrate her birthday.
“I keep telling myself, ‘Happy birthday, Renee. We’re gonna get through this,’ ” Greco’s mother, Jane Patterson, said after attorneys made their opening statements.
Allen, who was 18 during the time of the alleged crimes, reportedly used a table leg with a protruding screw to beat Greco, while co-defendant Robert J. Thousand, now 18, also of Rochester, covered Greco’s head with a blanket as he worked as Allen’s “accomplice,” Deputy District Attorney Holly E. Sloma said.
Sloma told the jury an autopsy report will show Greco was bashed by “multiple, catastrophic blows to her head” with the table leg at least 13 times.
“One blow sends a screw through her forehead,” Sloma said as she began to explain that Greco was hit so hard that parts of her skull shattered into parts of her brain. Sloma said Greco died on the floor in a pool of her own blood. “And without a fight or struggle, he keeps hitting her ... brutally bludgeoning Renee as she sat helplessly. This defendant showed no mercy.”
Sloma said witnesses described the sound of the object hitting Greco’s head so hard “you could hear the crack and echo” while she was yelling, “Stop!” and “Why?”
But Allen’s attorney, Edward Earl Key, said Allen “didn’t do it.”
“Anthony Allen did not murder Renee Greco,” Key said.
Key explained to jurors that his evidence will show that another teen resident, Lachey Renford, was the mastermind in gathering the group of boys in attempts to “convince all the teens to go AWOL.” Key said the boys wanted only to “assault” Greco so they could have a chance to escape from the Avenue House, and that “there was no intent to kill.”
He said the teens “lured” Greco into playing cards with them and positioned her at the kitchen table in such a way that she would be blind-sided when another teen would assault her.
Key described his client as a “clumsy, awkward, nerdy teen with limited street smarts,” which is why he followed the other Avenue House residents in this scheme, according to the defense. The Avenue House, a campus of Wyndham Lawn School operated by New Directions, was a residence for troubled teens.
Key also questioned the credibility of prosecution’s witnesses, saying: “It’s not the number of witnesses, it’s the quality of their testimony.” The teen residents, Renford, Sheron Williams and Donald Applewhite, all reportedly have criminal backgrounds, while this was Allen’s first arrest.
Sloma said after the beating, however, Allen told the four other witnesses who were in the room — Thousand, Williams, Applewhite and Renford — “You didn’t see anything” and fled the scene in a van owned by Wyndham Lawn School with Thousand and Williams in attempts to take a bus from Buffalo to Rochester around 2:45 a.m.
Thousand pleaded guilty in June to first-degree manslaughter, while Williams was not charged in the incident. Thousand is scheduled to testify against Allen as part of his plea agreement.
The three who fled were later located by Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority officers at a bus station in Buffalo after Lockport police sent out a statewide alert to locate the possible suspects. Renford and Applewhite reportedly told LPD dispatchers what happened via separate 911 calls after the incident.
Lockport Police Capt. Rick Podgers said detectives believe the slaying was sparked by a prior burglary by Allen at the Avenue House, in which money was stolen from a lock box in the staff office. New Direction’s Sloper said on the stand she was the first to notice the money missing and confronted the teens, who all reportedly denied taking it. She said she threatened to press charges against the culprit.
Sloma said witnesses told police Allen left the Avenue House after the burglary to ask friends for a “knife” or “baseball bat” because he “had to take care of someone.”
Attorneys said more information about Allen’s statements will arise throughout the trial, which will resume 10 a.m. Monday in Judge Sara Sheldon Sperrazza’s Niagara County courtroom. Sperrazza said the trial is projected to last at least three weeks.
