A soldier accused of killing his then-14-year-old girlfriend’s mother because she disapproved of their relationship has been found guilty of first degree murder. Barnes will be sentenced on September 19.
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There was a bus in Lehigh County court on Friday, and Caleb Barnes and Jamie Silvonek threw each other under it.
Barnes confirmed the pair went to Wal-Mart, and said Jamie Silvonek led to way to the winding South Whitehall Township creek where they buried her mother in the frozen ground.
“I killed her with your knife”, Barnes testified was Jamie’s explanation for her mother’s death.He said he attempted to report the killing and had his finger on 9-1-1 when Jamie convinced him not to make the call.After covering Cheryl Silvonek’s body, Barnes said he paused for a moment over the grave.”We had a few issues, but she was a really nice lady”, Barnes testified. “Everything I did was bad, if not worse than the physical act itself.”Under cross-examination by Deputy District Attorney Jeffrey Dimmig, Silvonek admitted planning the murder but denied carrying it out.”He (Barnes) had a knife”. He also said Silvonek stabbed her mother and he helped cover it up.
During his testimony Friday, Barnes placed the blame squarely on the teen Friday, telling jurors that she committed the murder and his only role was helping dispose of evidence because she claimed to be pregnant. Silvonek had forbidden Jamie from dating the then-20-year-old Barnes. “I realized that I had to do the right thing, that’s taking accountability for my actions, something your client has yet to do”.
According to Barnes, he said he would take the fall for the killing, and would claim he killed Cheryl Silvonek after she attacked him. “You will not have that kind of eye contact with this witness”.
The fight between mother and daughter had started when the teen said she was pregnant, Barnes testified that Silvonek told her. He was off-duty at the time of the killing.
The pair, once a couple in love, testified it was the other person who took a knife and brutally stabbed Cheryl Silvonek in the neck a year ago outside the Silvoneks’ Upper Macungie Township home.
The Morning Call of Allentown reports Barnes says he was asleep in his vehicle when Jamie knocked on his window, covered in blood.
Dimmig showed Barnes the murder weapon.
A federal judge blocked a state law aimed at diverting public money from Planned Parenthood, saying in a Friday ruling that the group stood to suffer “irreparable injury”.
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“That’s a utility knife”.
