Dan's Papers - October 30, 2009 - Bouncer/Caddy Murder Trial Enters Second Week

On Monday, Oct. 26, in a courtroom in Riverhead the murder trial of Anthony Oddone continued. Oddone, the 25 year old Southampton golf caddy, is accused of the strangulation death of corrections officer Andrew Reister of Hampton Bays. On the night of August 7, 2008, Reister, a father of two children, was employed as a bouncer at the Southampton Publick House, a popular bar/restaurant.

Assistant D.A. Denise Merrifield is now in the process of rolling out 30 eyewitnesses to bolster the claim of the state's case that Oddone committed two counts of murder in the second degree, which comes along with a 25-years-to-life prison sentence. Reister died two days after the strangulation in the bar. Testimony to date has stated that Oddone, perhaps 100 pounds lighter than Reister, was ordered by the bouncer to get off a table, where he was dancing with two others. It was said that Reister then knocked Oddone off the table and in the tussle that ensued, Oddone administered a chokehold that first subdued Reister, then in effect starved his brain of oxygen, causing his subsequent death two days later.

Sarita Kedina, Oddone's lawyer, said in the opening statement last Wednesday that the tragic death was neither premeditated nor murder, but in fact the actions of someone who was at one moment having a very good time, and in the next was suddenly forced to defend himself in a scuffle. Whereas in her opening statement Assistant D.A. Merrifield said she will prove that once Oddone put the choke hold on Reister his intentions were to kill him.

On Monday, before a packed courtroom, with the trial now into its second week, Merrifield presented witness number three, Andrew Goucher, who began corroborating the testimony of the two earlier witnesses. As family members of both the accused and the victim (including Reister's wife) watched, Goucher told the same storied details of how, in a matter of minutes, the situation went from Oddone dancing on a table at the bar to choking Reister to near-death. Then, Oddone ran out of the establishment and fled in a cab as paramedics and police arrived to try and save Reister's life.

During this testimony, Reister's widow Stacey began to cry.

The trial is expected to continue well into November. The issue is not whether Oddone choked Reister to death, but whether he intended to kill him. Was Oddone just defending himself against a larger man who was hired to keep order in a bar?

During the trial, Oddone is being held at Riker's Island in New York City because his lawyer fears for his safety in the Suffolk County jail system, where Reister worked and was respected and beloved.