SCHENECTADY — Nicholas Fiebka told two correction officers who interviewed him at different times within six hours in November as part of an intake process at a jail that he killed his mother, those guards testified Tuesday.
Guard Antonio Viscariello told the judge in a Schenectady County courtroom during a pre-trial hearing that Fiebka said he killed his mother with a gun, in response to a question related to a standard set of risk assessment questions given to incoming inmates whether they had experienced a major loss in the past six months.
Viscariello said he decided to ask more probing questions such as when the murder happened to help him better evaluate and make an informed decision whether Fiebka was a threat to himself or other inmates. The other correction officer, Joseph Pugilisi, who took the stand for the prosecution, said he interviewed Fiebka later the morning of Nov. 23.
Puglisi said the defendant, in response to the same question about having suffering a major loss, calmly answered that he had killed his mother. Puglisi said he did not delve deeper but said he didn’t agree with his co-worker that Fiebka needed to be put on a round-the-clock suicide watch.
While a prosecutor argued that the officers were only doing their job to keep the jail safe, defense attorney Mark Sacco said they violated Fiebka’s rights by not reading him his Miranda rights when they knew or should have known he was a suspect in a homicide.
Fiebka, who turned 20 in February, faces a maximum sentence of life without parole if convicted of first-degree murder in the Nov. 21 killings of his mother, Alesia Wadsworth, 60, and William Horwedel, 61, in the Princetown home they shared. A grand jury also indicted the defendant on four counts of criminal possession of a weapon, aggravated criminal contempt and a misdemeanor charge of criminal possession of a rapid-fire modified device.
The…
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