PORTLAND – Prosecutors expect to call one witness this morning and then rest their case in the murder trial of Chad Gurney.

Then it will be the defense team’s turn to call witnesses and begin to build its case that Gurney was legally insane when he killed 18-year-old Zoe Sarnacki in 2009.

The state’s position is that Gurney was sane at the time.

Most of the evidence presented by the prosecution during the first week of the trial, which opened Monday in Cumberland County Superior Court, was undisputed.

Gurney’s lawyers concede that the 29-year-old defendant strangled Sarnacki, mutilated her and set fire to her body in his apartment on Cumberland Avenue in Portland on May 25, 2009.

Most of the witnesses who have testified have confirmed those facts and developed a timeline of events.

That means the heart of the case — the differing opinions of doctors who evaluated Gurney in the weeks and months after the killing — has yet to be heard by Justice Roland Cole.

Because Gurney waived his right to a jury, Cole alone is responsible for hearing the evidence and returning a verdict.

Sarah Churchill, who is defending Gurney along with lawyer Robert LeBrasseur, said the medical experts are scheduled to testify early next week. The trial could end as early as Wednesday, she said.

On Thursday, a man who was a neighbor of Gurney testified that on the day of the killing, he heard a single scream from a woman, coming from Gurney’s apartment. The neighbor said he muted his television, but heard no other sounds and was not concerned enough about the scream to call police.

Eli Chase, a Portland police detective, testified about the results of his examination of Gurney’s laptop computer. Chase said someone had visited a website on the computer that featured “shocking videos,” including one captioned “Woman half-beheaded for suspected cheating.”

Chase said he could not determine whether the computer user had watched the video, or when the caption was catalogued by the computer.

On cross-examination by Churchill, Chase said the caption could simply have been part of a long list of captions that showed up on the laptop when the user visited a certain website.

In opening statements, Assistant Attorney General Donald Macomber suggested that Gurney could have been motivated to kill Sarnacki and decapitate her because she had told him she was intimate with another person while he was traveling. Gurney has told police he believed they were “soul mates.”

Also Thursday, Cole watched surveillance tape from the Big Apple gas station at the base of High Street in Portland.

The tape, recorded around 6:15 p.m. on May 25, 2009, shows Gurney driving into the parking lot. He walked into the store, looked around for a minute, picked up a clear plastic jug near the door and walked out to the gas pumps. After filling the jug with gasoline, Gurney drove away.

Gurney has admitted that he bought $2.50 worth of gas with a debit card, then returned to his apartment. He said he poured gas on Sarnacki’s body and in other areas of the apartment, then lit her on fire.

If he is found guilty, Gurney will face a minimum of 25 years and a maximum of life in prison.

If Cole finds him not criminally responsible, Gurney will be committed to the Riverview Psychiatric Center in Augusta until he can prove to the court that he is no longer a threat to society.

Staff Writer Trevor Maxwell can be contacted at 791-6451 or at:

tmaxwell@pressherald.com

 

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