By JAMES PENTLAND
NORTHAMPTON — A woman whose turbulent marriage had pushed her past the point of no return, or a bungled investigation that zeroed in on one suspect and failed to follow other, equally plausible leads?
These were the two versions of events that prosecuting and defense attorneys presented in their closing arguments to the jury in the Cara Rintala murder trial on Wednesday in Hampshire Superior Court. The jury was set to begin its deliberations Wednesday afternoon.
Rintala is charged with strangling and beating her wife, Annamarie Cochrane Rintala, in their Granby home on March 29, 2010. This is her fourth trial on the same charge.
As she had in her opening statement, defense attorney Rosemary Scapicchio began by telling the jury the entire case was based on a lie — that the dispatcher who took the 911 call from Rintala’s neighbor told police it was a domestic incident.
Reports from the crime scene listed only Cara Rintala as a suspect, she said.
Scapicchio said defense witness Dr. Jennifer Lipman, in testifying Tuesday that Cochrane Rintala could have been killed three to four hours before her body was found, correctly considered that she had been engaged in a violent struggle, something she said the commonwealth’s experts ignored.
When police arrived at the 18 Barton St. home the night of the murder, Rintala follows their instructions, Scapicchio said. She invites them to search the house, and sits for a 2½-hour interview that night with police and answers every question.
“She doesn’t try to hide anything,” Scapicchio said.
Rintala agrees to meet police for another interview the next day with no lawyer present.
Addressing the prosecution’s evidence that Rintala disposed of three rags at a McDonald’s in Holyoke the day of the murder, Scapicchio questioned why her client would tell police she went there if she was trying to hide something.
Rintala had no need to cover up trace evidence in her own home by pouring paint over her wife’s body, Scapicchio asserted, suggesting that Cochrane Rintala’s friend Mark Oleksak did.
Oleksak lied to police, deleted a text he’d sent to Cochrane Rintala the day of her death, and told police he was a good friend “until I find out you’ve lied to me,” Scapicchio told the jury.
“How do police not ask him about it?” she said. “Why do they not consider him a suspect?”
According to previous testimony, Oleksak and Cochrane Rintala had recently traveled to Connecticut and she had asked him for $350 to buy a dog, which she didn’t buy, and then had asked him for $20 so she could buy a crate for the dog she didn’t have. Their texts on the day of her death were about him standing in line to buy her an iPad.
Scapicchio said police had “blinders on and didn’t follow any of the leads.”
“Look at it without blinders,” she urged the jury. “Cara Rintala didn’t kill her wife.”
Motive, opportunity, meansThe killing of Annamarie Cochrane Rintala was not a random act of violence, First Assistant District Attorney Steve Gagne told the jury.
“She was murdered by the one person who had the motive, opportunity and means to commit this crime,” he said.
The Rintalas’ combustible relationship involved restraining orders, assault allegations and divorce filings, Gagne said. Cara Rintala told the judge in a May 2009 hearing where each sought to file a restraining order against the other that she had had “all that I can take.”
The judge in the case, John Payne, grew exasperated with the couple, who had a 2-year-old daughter, Brianna.
“The two of you can either deal with this as adults and deal with it in Probate Court as your marriage dissolves or, if you want, I’ll call (the Department of Children and Families) right now … and indicate to them that neither one of you is stable enough to deal with that child,” Payne is heard to say on a recording, which Gagne played again for the jury.
The defendant was in fear of losing her house, her job and, most of all, her baby, Gagne said. From that point on, there were no more 911 calls, no restraining orders sought — not because there was peace in the home, but because the court system was no longer an option, he said.
In their final argument, after Annamarie tumbled down the basement stairs, Gagne said, Cara Rintala had a choice: Call 911 and lose her house and her baby, or put an end to things.
Nobody else had the opportunity to commit the crime, to wipe the bloodstains, and to stage a break-in by damaging the outside door, he argued. No one else knew she would leave the house or when she’d return.
“Then, she attempts to create a digital alibi,” Gagne said.
She leaves the house, driving around for hours in the rain, he said, then, at 4:48 p.m., she starts “blowing up Anne’s phone.” This was 108 minutes after she claimed she had left the house with Brianna to let her wife get some sleep before going back for another night shift that evening.
In a voicemail an hour later, Gagne said, “she goes to extravagant lengths” to explain where she has been, what she’s doing and where she’s going.
When she gets home and sees her wife’s feet stretched out on the basement floor, she asks the neighbor to call 911 and, in a final act, pours the paint, Gagne said.
This creates a problem for the defense, he asserted.
“You can conclude the paint had been freshly poured,” he told the jury.
Of the three pathologists who testified, only Lipman was asked to determine if Cochrane Rintala could have been alive at 3.
The others, Dr. Joann Richmond and Dr. Thomas Andrew, who concluded she had been dead for six to eight hours, agreed there was no evidence of any prolonged, violent struggle, Gagne said. Lipman, he argued, “consistently shaded her conclusions, without supporting evidence, to benefit the defense.”
Of the other suspects put forward by the defense, Gagne said investigators had interviewed Oleksak and Cochrane Rintala’s on-off girlfriend Carla Daniele within days of the killing, and their stories were corroborated.
“There’s not one iota of evidence putting Mark Oleksak anywhere near Granby that day,” he said.
Witnesses have said strangulation can cause unconsciousness in 10 seconds, but it takes three to four minutes of sustained pressure to kill someone.
Cara Rintala could have stopped at any time, Gagne said. “But she squeezed and squeezed until every ounce of life was gone.”
He reminded jurors that their verdict rests on proof beyond a reasonable doubt, not beyond all possible doubt.
“There’s no other reasonable explanation,” he concluded. “There’s no reasonable doubt that Cara Rintala is guilty of murder.”