Kenneth Cusick found not guilty of murder charge

OTTAWA – Prosecutors allege Kenneth Cusick drowned his wife Tracy in 2006 – but a jury might not have even agreed on how Tracy died, much less whether her husband had a hand in it.

Friday, a La Salle County jury deliberated and acquitted Kenneth Cusick of murder.

Prosecutors had produced a series of witnesses who either testified Tracy could not have accidentally drowned in 2006 and that an overdose (her blood came back positive for methadone) was not the cause of death.

Engineer consultant Julius Ballanco said toilets were designed to preclude an adult from drowning in a toilet and that there were no known cases of this ever happening. Similarly,

Dr. Wilson “Toby” Hayes, an expert in biomechanics, said Tracy could have stuck her face into the toilet (though not easily) but couldn’t have remained there after losing consciousness.

“The simple answer is (after passing out) you would fall back and out of the toilet,” Hayes said.

An both a pathologist and toxicologist ruled out overdose as an alternate explanation of death. Dr. Scott Denton said an examination of Tracy’s lungs and these showed evidence of death by drowning rather than death by overdose. Toxicologist Christopher Long acknowledged Tracy’s methadone level was on the bubble of the lethal range but that the lab results ruled out methadone as a cause of death.

“It’s not, ‘Oh my God, it’s so much methadone,’” Long testified. “It’s nowhere near that.”

But the defense argued police and prosecutors didn’t have their ducks in a row, seizing upon irregularities in the forensic evidence and a wobbly investigation resulting in Kenneth being charged 11 years after Tracy’s death.

The first autopsy of Tracy Cusick failed to catch two key findings made in 2010 after she was exhumed. The pathologist who autopsied her the second time stood by the finding of drowning, but conceded he didn’t find all the signs and symptoms of drowning.

Ottawa police never chronicled a witness statement that the toilet bowl was removed and disposed of, smashed, in a dumpster. That a replacement commode was installed in its place was discovered three years after the fact.

And for every statement suggesting Cusick was complicit in her death – witnesses said he was unemotional, the marriage was shaky, he disposed of her clothes – the defense seemed to have an answer. Cusick’s mother said they wept together at the hospital. Tracy had known drug and alcohol issues. The dumpster was there to dispose of water-damaged flooring.

Tom Collins can be reached at (815) 220-6930 or TCollins@shawmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @NT_Court.