Fortin found guilty of murder, other charges
Could face life in prison plus 20 years, if he is spared the death penalty
BY KATHY CHANG Staff Writer

NEW BRUNSWICK - After approximately nine hours of deliberation and three weeks of testimony in the second trial for Steven Fortin, the nineman, three-woman jury last week found the former Carteret handyman guilty of the 1994 capital murder of Melissa Padilla in the Avenel section of Woodbridge Township.

However, Fortin may be spared the death penalty this time around as the court awaits word on the Legislature's decision on the bill that would abolish New Jersey's death penalty.

Fortin was found guilty of Padilla's murder in 2000 and was sentenced to death by lethal injection.

The Supreme Court in a 4-2 decision overturned Fortin's conviction and death sentence in February 2004.

N.J. Superior Court Judge James Mulvihvill, who presided over the case, said he would hold a hearing at 9 a.m. Jan. 18 to see if the court can move on to the penalty phase of the case.

Fortin, who sat quietly with his arms folded throughout the four-week trial, sighed and shook his head as the jury read the verdict on each of the five counts against him.

Fortin was also found guilty of firstdegree aggravated sexual assault; however, the jury found Fortin not guilty of robbery of Padilla's pants and underwear, one of the cheese steaks she had purchased at the QuickChek, and some change.

Fortin could face life plus 20 years in prison if he is spared the death penalty.

Carmen Gonzalez, Padilla's mother, who has waited 13 years for justice for her daughter's murder, said that although the guilty conviction was justice for her daughter, she was still angry.

"He took her away from me, from her children and from her family," said Gonzalez, wiping away tears, outside the courtroom.

Fortin was indicted on Sept. 6, 1995, and was charged with the first-degree murder of Melissa Padilla, 25, on Aug. 11, 1994, after she had picked up some food for her four young children (ages 2 to 5) around 11 p.m. from a QuickChek store.

Padilla was walking back to the Gem Motel on Route 1, which was about a six-minute walking distance from QuickChek, where she had resided with her children and her boyfriend, Hector Fernandez.

Padilla's body was discovered naked from the waist down in a concrete pipe alongside Route 1. She had been brutally beaten about the face and head, resulting in a broken nose; she had been sexually assaulted and had bite marks on her chin and left breast, and she had been strangled to death.

Police had exhausted all of their leads, and the case remained unsolved until the Maine State Police contacted Woodbridge Township police inquiring about Fortin in April 1995 because he was a township resident at the time. He was under investigation for the assault of a Maine state trooper. Fortin pleaded guilty to assault and was sentenced in November 1995 to 20 years in a Maine prison.

Police in New Jersey learned that in August 1994 Fortin had been living at the Douglas Motel with Dawn Archer, his girlfriend of five months at the time, near the QuickChek, and had made a purchase at the convenience store the day of Padilla's murder.

Archer testified that she had an argument and physical altercation with Fortin, which was about an hour before Padilla's murder, in the parking lot of Bud's Hut, which is within five minutes of the crime scene.

Patrolman Eugene Grimshaw of the Woodbridge Police Department, who is now deceased, testified in the original trial that he arrived at the scene around 10:32 p.m. on Aug. 11, 1994, and observed an intoxicated female with redness in the face and a bleeding nose.

In light of the similarities between the Maine state trooper assault in 1995 and Padilla's murder - sexual assault, beating about the face resulting in a broken nose, and bite marks to the chin and left breast - Woodbridge police traveled to Maine to question Fortin.

Police did not uncover any forensic evidence linking Fortin to the Padilla murder.

The Supreme Court cited that the testimony at the original trial of former FBI agent Robert Hazelwood concerning linkage analysis lacked sufficient scientific reliability to establish that the same perpetrator committed the Maine and New Jersey crimes.Also, the court found that Judge Joyce Munkacsi, who presided over the original trial and is now retired, did not ask the jurors if they could remain fair and impartial in the case after hearing testimony about the sexual assault in Maine.

This is the second death Fortin has been found guilty of causing. In 1983, he pleaded guilty and received a manslaughter sentence for killing his brother over drug paraphernalia in Middlesex County.

In closing arguments on Nov. 29, Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Keith Warburton said Fortin had a motive for killing Padilla: anger.

"It was personal anger toward Dawn … she wanted to leave him," he said. "Melissa was at the wrong place at the wrong time. She wants to get home to her kids, and when she crosses paths with Steven Fortin, it is fortunate for him, but unfortunate for Melissa. In a dark area on Route 1, she runs right into his anger, and at 5 foot 4 inches tall with two full grocery bags in her hands, she is defenseless."

Michael Priarone, one of the defense lawyers for Steven Fortin, said the state's case should leave the jury with doubt.

"Why were there two DNAs found on the [Marlboro] cigarette butt, and Melissa Padilla's DNA was not found on it?" he said. "That's because it's more likely that Dawn Archer and Steven Fortin were sharing a cigarette butt on their way down to their friend's [Charles Bennett] place at the Five Oaks Apartments. If he killed that woman, her DNA would be on that cigarette butt."

The cigarette butt was found about a foot away from Padilla's body.

Charlotte Word, an expert in DNA testing, specifically criminal and biological testing, testified that there were two sources of DNA found on the cigarette butt - one primary source and one minor source.

"The findings were consistent to Steven Fortin and he could not be excluded as the primary source on the cigarette butt," said Word.

Priarone suggested that police did not look closely into the odd behavior of Padilla's boyfriend, Hector Fernandez, who brought a 5-year-old and a 12-yearold (sons of an employee at the Gem Motel) to look for his girlfriend and Trent Huebanks, whose car broke down near the crime scene. Huebanks was an acquaintance of Fernandez. Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Christie Bevacqua said she could not comment on the case because it was still ongoing, but said all she could say about the conviction was "justice was served."

The defense attorneys for Fortin - Priarone and Cathy Waldor - said they couldn't comment on the ongoing case.

Gonzalez said her daughter's children, who are now teenagers, are "doing fine" and were too small to understand what happened to their mother at the time.

"I take care of the two girls, and the two boys are with their father [Fernandez]," she said. "They are together most of the time."

Gonzalez, who sat throughout the trial and at times had to step out during graphic photos of the injuries to her daughter, added that she wanted to thank the jury.

"I knew he [Fortin] was never going to come out. … I hope he rots in hell," she said.