Man convicted of 23-year-old murder

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) _ A 47-year-old convicted sex offender was found guilty Thursday of killing a mother of nine during a rape in her apartment nearly 23 years ago.

After listening to just two days of prosecution testimony, an Onondaga County jury convicted Edward Kithcart of second-degree murder in the May 1983 slaying of Patricia "Barbara" Kilbourne.

Kithcart, who faces a maximum sentence of 25 years to life in prison, was accused of smothering the 51-year-old Kilbourne. The two lived in the same apartment building but had no other relationship, police said.

On Wednesday, as the trial was wrapping up, Kithcart began complaining about his defense, but Onondaga County Judge William Walsh refused to remove lawyer Eric Jeschke from the case. When Kithcart asked to be excused from the courtroom for the remainder of the trial, the judge rejected that request as well.

Jeschke did not call any witnesses for the defense.

During the short trial, Sheila Gentile from the Wallie Howard Center for Forensic Sciences in Syracuse testified she matched Kithcart's DNA to a semen stain on a pair of torn panties found under the victim's body. Another investigator testified that authorities obtained court-ordered hair and saliva samples for DNA testing from Kithcart in 1994.

Kithcart's fingerprints also were found on a cookie tin in Kilbourne's apartment.

Kithcart was not an initial suspect in the murder. He contended he did not know Kilbourne and had never been in her apartment but was linked to the apartment in 1990 through the fingerprints.

Jeschke asked jurors to focus on the presence of other semen in the victim's body for which DNA testing excluded Kithcart as the source.

Kithcart was serving time in state prison on sex abuse charges when he was charged with Kilbourne's murder in 2005.