nothin New Haven Independent | Witnesses Testify at Yale Doc’s Murder Hearing

Witnesses Testify at Yale Doc’s Murder Hearing

Three condo residents, all women, were in the midst of their daily morning routines when gunshots rang out. One was putting on her make-up — a long process, she said — and was nearly done. Another, ahead of schedule, was drinking coffee and talking with her finance in the living room. Another was in her living room with her dog watching the morning news. They did not know each other. 
 
After the morning of April 26, 2010, they would find themselves bound by that series of gunshots that they heard and responded to. They would soon learn that a neighbor, Dr. Vanjinder Toor, had been shot to death as he left his condo where he and his family lived. He died near his car. His wife, Parneeta Sidhu, began screaming for help. She, too, was the target of the gunfire.
 

The three women appeared in Superior Court Wednesday at an unusual probable cause hearing in the murder case to describe the events of that day. They helped set the murder scene at the Meadows condominiums where Dr. Toor, a 34-year-old Yale doctor, was killed. Parneeta Sidhu, his then pregnant wife, was not hit. Police have charged Dr. Lishan Wang with Dr. Toor’s murder and with attempting to kill his wife. She is not expected to testify at the probable cause hearing.



It is rare to hold a probable cause hearing in a murder case. The only reason for this one is that Dr. Wang, 45, wanted it, and since he is representing himself (with the help of his public defenders), he gets to make the decisions. A probable cause hearing takes place before a judge, not a jury and essentially outlines the prosecution’s case. It is up to the judge to rule on whether the evidence supports the murder charge.

The prosecutor in the case, Senior State’s Attorney Gene R. Calistro, Jr., must prove to Superior Court Judge Roland D. Fasano by a preponderance of the evidence that he has established probable cause that Dr. Wang committed the Toor murder on the morning of April 26, 2010. Police say that Dr. Wang travlled from Georgia to Connecticut, lay in wait for Dr. Toor and then opened fire. Dr. Toor was a post-doctoral fellow at the Yale School of Medicine at the time.

Probable cause requires a low threshold of evidence, so Calistro is not putting on his own whole case. But he is presenting key witnesses who are expected to testify at a trial. The hearing also gives Scott Jones, the public defender, an opportunity to examine the evidence against Dr. Wang, evaluate the witnesses and cross-examine them. 

All three women testified told the court that they heard the shots that morning and went to investigate. All three agreed that the alleged killer was wearing a blanket or a towel over his face and head. And while none could identify Dr. Wang in court they provided what turned out to be key details that led police to capture Wang minutes after the shooting. 

Kerry Mascaro knew the victims well. Dr. Toor and his wife and young son lived at 255 Blueberry Lane. Mascaro lives at 257. They were next-door neighbors. My finance and I heard four shots,” she said. About 30 seconds later we heard more shots. We immediately went out on the deck. Initially I heard nothing. Then I noticed a burgundy van.” She told the police that the van had temporary license plates and the license was out- of- state. This turned out to be true.

Then, she testified, she heard a woman screaming for help and she went flying out my door. I saw Dr. Toor lying there. I took his son and brought him back into my residence.”

As she spoke, Dr. Wang, wearing a tan prison suit, his hands in cuffs, listened attentively, not using his Mandarin interpreter. He leaned forward following her every word, absorbed in her recounting the events of that day nearly a year ago. He appeared engaged. 

Another neighbor, Christine Drew, who works at Yale-New Haven Hospital, said when she heard the gunshots she looked at her kitchen window to see a man holding a gun. He had something pink over his head.” She said he was wearing blue pants. Under cross-examination Scott Jones, Dr. Wang’s public defender, said he didn’t notice the color of the pants in the police report. He gave it to her to read. She found the reference to the blue pants and Jones withdrew his line of questioning.

None of the women could identify Dr. Wang. Drew said given his build she thought he was a male. He fired once or twice at woman who as walking between two cars,” she said. Then I noticed a man laying on the grass.”

Each of the women called 911 that morning, providing information about his van, its color, its out-of-state license plates. They told police about the towel. 

Their information about the vehicle led Officer Joseph Peterson to make a quick arrest soon after Dr. Wang left the condo complex. He was just leaving the overnight shift, at about 8 a.m, when the information about the van came over the police radio. He told the court he spotted the van, and prepared myself for a U‑turn and then to stop the vehicle.” He said he grabbed his patrol rifle and approached the van. Dr. Wang, he said, was ordered at rifle point to the side of the road. He appeared frightened. He turned blue. He was breathing heavily. “

Officer Peterson called for back-up and kept Dr. Wang at rifle point. I asked him where he came from and if shot someone. He said he came from New York.”

Officer Peterson identified Dr. Wang in the courtroom as the man he arrested that morning.

Once Dr. Wang was identified, Calistro set out to show that evidence collected from the guns found in the Wang van matched the bullets taken from Dr. Toor’s body. At one point Jones objected to an identification of the two bullets taken from Toor’s body because the witness identifying them was a Branford police detective and not someone in the direct chain of custody. 

But Calistro said that at a probable cause hearing the law does not require the prosecutor to show a direct chain of custody for evidence. Judge Fasano agreed with Calistro’s position.

Detective Francis Budwitz, Jr., who works for the state’s major crimes unit, was deployed to the condo scene at about 8:30 a.m. that day. He was the next witness. At the scene he found various ballistics evidence including shell casings from three guns later retrieved by police from Dr. Wang’s van. The shell casings had been placed in small manila envelopes and sealed.

In court Budwitz was asked to open them. He did. Then he identified them as the ones he found at the site. He was also asked to discuss the items he found in Dr. Wang’s 1996 Dodge Caravan. These items were examined pursuant to a search warrant. He described the three hand guns and the 1,000 rounds of ammunition found in the rear of the car. The guns seized were placed in boxes and taken to court. But they were not opened and displayed.

Budwitz also discussed a lavender bath towel he found in the van under a rear seat, the towel the neighbors remember Dr. Wang wearing that morning. Budwitz found Google maps to Blueberry Lane from Marietta, Ga., where Dr. Wang lived with his wife and children. 

Finally there was a four-page letter from a federal judge in the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York that was found in the van. At the time of the murder, Dr. Wang had sued Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, where both Dr. Wang and Dr. Toor worked from 2005 to 2008. Police say there was bad blood between the two men.

The two doctors first met when Dr. Toor served as chief resident and Dr. Wang served as a resident at Kingsbrook. Dr. Toor was Dr. Wang’s boss. A confrontation between the two occurred on May 15, 2008 after Dr. Wang failed to respond to calls while on hospital duty. Ultimately, Dr. Wang was dismissed. He sued the hospital for violation of his civil rights, asserting Dr. Toor discriminated against Chinese doctors. But he never got his job back and found work difficult to get from that point on. He was unemployed at the time of his arrest.

The final prosecution witness. James Stephenson, a state ballistics expert who is expected to tie the gun evidence together, is scheduled to testify Monday when the hearing resumes before Judge Fasano at 2 p.m.. 
 
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