David Repasky

When I research a case I basically put the information I find in different categories and give them the weight I feel it deserves. At the top of that list are appeal records. If I can find an appeal record that is not just the thing I rely on the most, but will also be the first thing I will read to get information. The next level is newspaper articles and those are pretty much sub-divided. From time to time I will find one that did a day by day or even a timeline throughout a day update article and those are fairly good. From there I have to be a bit skeptical because many times as stories are updated they will basically re-publish much of a previous article and if it had some facts confused or misleading it can become a bit of a problem. It may seem odd but the sources that I depend on the least are blogs such as mine. It is not that I do not have respect for most of those who do this, but I find a lot of misinformation in blogs especially when it comes to the legal issues. I recently blogged about a case in which there had been two trials that ended in hung juries. I found a blog that repeatedly stated that the person had been found “not guilty” and “innocent of all charges.” Neither of these statements are true in that particular case. Through blogs I may find new information that I have not discovered but I do try to verify that information.

With all of that being said, when it came to this case I did come across several articles but few were written at the time of the trial or during the investigation. Many were written a long time after, sometimes years. I also came across several blogs, but again, I tend to go through those with a grain of salt. Normally finding the little information that I found would have had me question whether I would even blog about this case at all. However, this case intrigues me, maybe it is because there is so little information with evidence and facts available. Based on the information released there is no way of knowing what, besides the word of a man who first was arrested with David Repasky on other charges and later confessed to helping him commit another crime, one more serious, and being granted immunity from prosecution, was entered into evidence proving David Repasky's guilt. So, lets dig in, shall we?

In June of 2000 David Repasky married his long time girlfriend, Amanda. They already had two children and Amanda was pregnant with their third. Amanda's parent had long been divorced and while she was very close to her mother, Lynda McClelland, it was also said that her childhood with her mother, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, had been difficult. Lynda had bouts of depression and expressed suicidal thoughts.

On the night of July 26, 2000 David and Amanda had gone over to Lynda's North Braddock Pennsylvania home because she was “upset.” This appeared to be one of the times that Lynda talked of suicide but it was said that she “did not seem serious.” This was the last time Amanda saw her mother. The couple left and went home to their home where they had a babysitter for their other children who decided to spend the night at their home. Amanda went to bed but David had stayed up. The following morning Amanda got up around 8:00 and David was not home. According to the babysitter he had left around five that morning. He returned between 9:00 and 9:30. I found nothing that stated where he claimed to have been or even what he looked like when he returned home.

It is unclear at what point Amanda realized her mother was gone. I saw a very quick reference that did not go into detail that she may have had a boyfriend but again, I have no real information on that. At some point in 2002 Amanda even went on the Montel Williams show when he had psychic, Sylvia Browne on his show. Regardless of what you think of psychics or Sylvia Browne specifically is another blog for another day. On this episode Sylvia told Amanda that Lynda had been abducted by a man with the initials “M.J.” and was taken to Orlando Florida and was still alive. It is not clear whether Amanda believed this or pursued the lead.

On March 10, 2003 David Repasky, his best friend Donald Wall and at least eight others were arrested and accused of being involved in a burglary ring that was responsible for “more than 300 burglaries in eight Western Pennsylvania counties.” It was indicated that David had in fact cooperated with authorities prior to the arrests being made and that Donald Wall knew about it. By all indications on that day Donald Wall began to talk about the disappearance of Lynda McClelland. I suspect however on that day he told them he had information because it was four more days before Wall took investigators to where Lynda's body had been buried and in the process he was given immunity from prosecution.

David went on trial in December of 2003. According to Wall, David had murdered Lynda in her home on the morning of June 27, 2000. Allegedly David was having an affair with Lynda although I found no other details other than this statement. Prosecutors would say that she was murdered because she had threatened to tell her daughter Amanda about the affair but this theory seems to have come from Wall who would claim that David said he had had sex with Lynda and then choked her and stood on her neck when she threatened to tell Amanda. This is where things get even more questionable. One article I read stated that Wall stated that he had dug a hole on some property that was less than a half mile from his grandmothers house. He may or may not have been living there at the time. There was an indication that he hung around and waited for David and when he did not show Wall went home and called him. Later he went back and said he found a body wrapped in garbage bags and duct tape and that he put the body in the hole and buried it. Another article however said that Wall told authorities that David had driven him to a store to buy trash bags and duct tape and that the two of them wrapped Lynda's body and put it in her basement, covered with clothing. Of course that does not mean that the first scenario I mentioned did not also happen but the latter information seemed to show that Wall was more involved than the first one had indicated. Three days after the body was found David was charged with the first degree murder of his mother in law.

David did not have a jury trial. The wording I found was “non jury” which indicates a “bench trial” meaning that only a judge was left to decide his fate. This is not unheard of in murder trials but it is also not all that extremely common. Pennsylvania is one of the few “commonwealth” states and they do things a bit different but they do still require that a jury be unanimous in criminal convictions. This is why it is unusual for someone to have a bench trial in a criminal case. Twelve (generally, or sometimes less depending on the state rules) have to agree on a verdict and that gives a defendant more of a chance to at the very least have the jury come to no conclusion and there be a hung jury. When only a judge is involved then that judge is the sole decider in the case. Again, I am not proficient on Pennsylvania law but some states require more than the word of a co-conspirator in order to file charges against another person. While Wall made a deal for immunity, it would still not have been enough, in some states, to file charges against David. As I said from the beginning I found little information on this case and the words of Donald Wall was the only evidence that I found. Does that mean there was not more? Absolutely not. It is completely possible that there were security cameras showing the two men going to a store that day to buy trash bags and duct tape. The problem is that I do not know.

The defense argued that David was framed because he had agreed to testify in the burglary case and would have testified basically against Donald Wall. Amanda, who had divorced David the month before his trial began testified about the night before and day of her mother's disappearance. There were comments made that Amanda absolutely believed her husband to be guilty in the murder of her mother. With all of this being said the judge declared David Repasky guilty and he was ultimately given a sentence of life without parole.

I found David in the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections but with little information. Some states are better at this than others. Interestingly I found nothing related to Donald Wall there. Yes, he was given immunity in this case but there was still the alleged burglary ring that he and David had been involved in. In fact, I found nothing more on that case at all aside from the connection to Lynda's murder.

Did David murder his mother in law? Maybe but the media never released enough information to allow anyone to make an informed decision. Generally you will hear me say that we have to believe that the “jury got it right” but in this case there was no jury... there was a single person sitting behind a bench. In this case we do not even have twelve people that are able to come back and tell us why they came to the decision that they did. Some could say that the fact that Amanda believes it is enough and again, maybe he did do it, but was there really enough evidence to convict him? I have seen case after case where family members do not believe in their guilt until prosecutors convince them, but then cannot do the same to a jury. Sometimes family members want to believe there is justice for their loved one, regardless who it is and is willing to believe whatever law enforcement and prosecutors tell them. I am not saying that is for certain the case here but in my opinion more should have been released to the media at the time of the crime for informed opinions. At this point most will not question the verdict, and I am unsure that is valid.