Lawyer: Reasonable doubt in Pittsburgh poison case

PITTSBURGH - A lawyer for a University of Pittsburgh medical researcher accused of poisoning his wife suggested Thursday that an expert pathologist's opinion that her cause of death is undetermined is enough reasonable doubt to acquit him.

Dr. Robert Ferrante's lawyer focused his closing argument on Wednesday's testimony from Dr. Cyril Wecht, who said conflicting blood test results and evidence Dr. Autumn Klein's death could have been due to natural causes led him to consider the cause and manner of her death "undetermined."

Allegheny County prosecutors say Dr. Robert Ferrante, a leading researcher into Lou Gehrig's disease, laced his wife's energy drink with cyanide on April 17, 2013. She fell suddenly ill that night and died three days later.

An assistant district attorney is scheduled to make that argument to the jury later Thursday before the panel begins deliberating.

Ferrante, 66, and his defense lawyers say Klein could have been stricken by a cardiac arrhythmia or some kind of brain abnormality relating to headaches and fainting spells she had suffered in the previous months. They attempted to cast doubt on a lab test that found a fatal level of the poison in her blood by noting other blood tests either weren't completed or found cyanide metabolites at common, nonlethal levels.

Assistant District Attorney Lisa Pellegrini told the jury in her opening statement that Ferrante bought the poison using a university charge card. Ferrante has said the toxin was useful in replicating the kind of cellular death he studied in his laboratory.

Ferrante testified Wednesday. His lawyer, William Difenderfer, asked him if the cyanide "was purchased for the purpose of you plotting or planning to kill your wife?"

"Absolutely not," Ferrante said.

"Would you, on the 17th of April, or anytime, would you have ever harmed your wife?" Difenderfer followed up.

"No," Ferrante said.

Pellegrini used Ferrante's description of the night his wife fell ill in an effort to undermine his credibility.

Police said Ferrante told them - and also a medical colleague - that his wife had collapsed after drinking the energy supplement. On the witness stand, Ferrante denied knowing whether his wife drank the substance - and that she simply collapsed after greeting him and kissing him on the cheek as he entered their kitchen.

Ferrante also noted that Klein was on her knees, fell to the floor and was waving him away as though she didn't need help for a full 10 minutes before calling 911. Ferrante estimated that time during a recording of the 911 call played earlier in the trial, during which Klein could be heard moaning, groaning and gasping for air.

Pellegrini asked Ferrante if he tried to carry his wife to a couch or otherwise move her from the kitchen floor. "I tried to make her comfortable where she was," he replied.

Asked how or why he let that go on for 10 minutes before calling 911, Ferrante said, "Sometimes time can pass very quickly or very slowly. I didn't have a stop watch."

After the closing arguments, jurors will be sequestered, in a hotel if necessary, until they reach a verdict.