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ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
SNOW HILL, Md.--A judge denied a motion yesterday to drop murder charges against Erika Grace Sifrit in the killing of two Virginia tourists in Ocean City on Memorial Day weekend.
The Mary Washington College graduate's attorney, Arcangelo Tuminelli of Baltimore, tried to get the charges dropped on the basis of an agreement with Worcester County State's Attorney Joel Todd. The agreement was reached two days after Sifrit and her husband, Benjamin Sifrit, were arrested as they allegedly tried to burglarize an Ocean City Hooters restaurant.
Erika Sifrit is also a suspect in a May 11 theft at the Hooters in Spotsylvania County.
In yesterday's contentious six-hour hearing, the two lawyers demonstrated widely differing interpretations of their agreement, signed after midnight in the early hours of June 3. Later that day, two dismembered bodies in black plastic bags were found in a Delaware landfill.
The bodies are believed to be those of Martha Crutchley, 51, and her boyfriend Joshua Ford, 32, both of Fairfax. DNA tests to confirm the identifications are still pending.
In charging documents, Ocean City police say Erika Sifrit admitted that her husband shot and killed Crutchley and Ford, and that she helped him dump the remains in black plastic bags in a Rehoboth Beach, Del., trash bin. The Sifrits face first degree murder charges in the deaths.
According to the lawyers' agreement, murder charges against Erika Sifrit were to be dropped if she took a polygraph test and testified against her husband.
Erika Sifrit, who appeared in court in a pantsuit and leg shackles, briefly testified yesterday and reiterated this point. When asked if she was willing to waive her marital privilege to refuse to testify against her husband, she answered, "Most definitely, yes."
However, Todd said the agreement to drop the murder charges was nullified when she gave statements revealing to Secret Service agents that she played a larger role in the murders than she had earlier indicated. Erika Sifrit "contradicted herself so many times I wasn't sure she had any value left as a witness," Todd said.
That revelation occurred during a five-hour interrogation just before the planned lie-detector test on July 23, leading Worcester County Assistant State's Attorney Scott Collins to call it off.
Yesterday's testimony did not reveal what Erika Sifrit told the Secret Service agents, but Assistant State's Attorney Kathleen Smith said "it makes her involved in the murders up to her neck." Todd testified that when Tuminelli learned what his client had told the agents, "he looked like a deer being caught in the headlights."
Still, Tuminelli claimed that Todd broke the contract because he did not allow Erika Sifrit to take the polygraph.
Tuminelli claimed Todd had signed the deal in early June because he was anxious to pursue the death penalty against Benjamin Sifrit, and Erika Sifrit's testimony against him was crucial evidence for that.
Plus, Tuminelli said Todd had "intense interest" at the time as to where the bodies had been disposed. Tuminelli had information on that--which he provided in exchange for an agreement that Todd would not pursue the death sentence or life without parole in prison for his client.
"I had to strike while the iron was hot," Tuminelli said. "I know they needed that information badly." Todd should be stuck with that agreement regardless of what Erika Sifrit told the agents, Tuminelli said. "He got what he bargained for but he doesn't like what he bargained for," Tuminelli said.
Worcester County Circuit Court Judge Theodore Eschenburg called that "spin." Erika Sifrit made the agreement impossible to live up to when she told the agents "she had a much more active role than even her attorney knew," the judge said.
Eschenburg did, however, uphold the part of the agreement that prevents the state from seeking the death penalty or life without parole for Erika Sifrit.
Her trial is scheduled for Dec. 2, but that date is subject to change because Tuminelli said yesterday that he will seek a change of venue due to pretrial publicity. Eschenburg indicated he would grant that motion.
Erika Sifrit graduated with honors from MWC two years ago and was a promising basketball player. She met her husband, a former Navy SEAL, at a party in Fredericksburg.
The Sifrits, both 24, moved to Altoona, Pa., her hometown, where they operated a scrapbooking store.
--Staff writer Kari Pugh contributed to this report.