Ciccone prelim starts, then delayed

The preliminary hearing for Albert Ciccone, charged in the hit and run death of his pregnant wife, was continued until Nov. 19 at 10:30 a.m., after just two witnesses were called to the stand last Thursday.

Ciccone is being represented by public defender Ed Fraschier with Terry Ratliff serving as co-counsel in the case, in which county prosecutor Aaron Bazzoli is expected to seek the death penalty. Ciccone is charged with two counts of first degree murder, after allegedly running down his wife with his car following an argument the two had on Ditto Road.

The hearing began with a series of motions by defense attorneys seeking a change of venue on the unique grounds that the law center does not have adequate facilities for a confidential converstation between the defendant and his attorneys. Fraschier argued that duct vents allow conversations to be heard outside of the room set aside for prisoners and their lawyers to confer.

Although the change of venue was denied by Magistrate Judge John Sellman, the judge did order the sheriff to provide adequate security for Ciccone and his lawyers, authorizing their conversations to be held in the jury room at the courthouse two times a week.

Without opposition from the prosecutor, Sellman did grant a request from the defense attorneys to issue a gag order on all parties to the case.

The preliminary hearing, in which Sellman will determine if Ciccone will be bound over to district court for trial, was continued because a number of key documents from the prosecutor and sheriff's office had not yet been turned over to defense attorneys.

The testimony presented Thursday was from Darlene Shaw and her 13-year-old daughter, Megan, who saw a portion of the incident.

Although neither saw Ciccone's vehicle strike his wife, Kathleen Terry, 22, to whom he had only been married for less than two months, both witnesses described looking out the windows of their home and seeing Terry's body flying through the air and landing in their front yard. Darlene Shaw said she rushed to Terry to assist her, tried to clean the blood from her, and prayed over her, but the young woman who had been a neighbor for many years died within moments of Shaw reaching her. She said Ciccone got out of the car, dialed a seven-number (non-emergency) number on his cell phone, and then walked away from the scene without approaching or asking about his wife. Ciccone was found by authorities about an hour later in the desert about a mile from the Shaw home.

The testimony of the two women, under direct examination and cross examination, provided details of what they saw, the descriptions of Terry's death often painful for the crowd of family and friends of Terry who crowded the courtroom, many wearing buttons displaying the young woman's picture and attached to purple ribbons, the symbol of efforts to combat domestic violence.