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INVESTIGATOR SAYS

SUSPECT INTENDED

TO KILL 2ND MAN

Hartwick Justice Forwards Case

For Grand Jury Consideration

By JIM KEVLIN • Special to AllOTSEGO.com

Murder suspect Perry J. Webb sits stolidly in Hartwick Town Court this evening. (Jim Kevlin/AllOTSEGO.com)

HARTWICK – After chilling descriptions of last Friday’s deadly tableau on a dirt road in New Lisbon, Town Justice Glenn Schilling this evening ordered the case against Perry J. Webb, 59, forwarded for an Otsego County grand jury to consider felony charges.

And Webb’s lawyer, Andrew Puritz, Oneonta, asked – and the judge ordered – that the suspect undergo a psychiatric evaluation.

But the dramatic highpoint of the evening had come 20 minutes before, when Deputy Sheriff Christopher A. Solovich testified about responding at 8:45 p.m. on June 2 to a “suspicious incident” on 393 Wheat Road, New Lisbon.

The sole lawman arrived at the wooded lot as darkness fell to discover a dead body under a tarp and a second man, “holding his head, rocking back and forth” and moaning – “he appeared he was in pain,” Solovich said.

“As I was walking up the driveway,” a man he later found to be Webb – pale, tall, slim, with a bushy white beard and unkempt gray hair over his collar – “he walked toward me,” the deputy testified.

He told the deputy, “Sir, we have one dead and one injured. I did what I had to do,” according to Solovich’s testimony.

Asked what happened, Webb replied, “I stomped him,” the deputy said, continuing, “With his boot – and he showed me his boot,” its sole covered with blood.

The dead man was identified as Arthur R. Bellinger, 63, and the wounded man, Scott Littlewood, who – later testimony suggested – had narrowly escaped a similar deadly fate.

Webb’s lawyer, Andrew Puritz, Oneonta, is interviewed by TV reporters after the hearing.

After calling an ambulance to treat Littlewood, the deputy said, “I checked on the victim for vital signs.”  Finding none, he examined the body more closely and found its face “disfigured to the extreme.  I could see no features.”

The deputy cuffed Webb and put him in the back of his cruiser, then checked the two “wooden-cabin style homes” to ensure there were no other people – victims or possible suspects – on site.

Solovich was soon joined by troopers from the state police Forensic Unit and a colleague from the county Sheriff’s Department, Inv. Jason Munson, who followed him to the stand this evening.

Questioned by Assistant District Attorney Will Green, Munson affirmed Solovich’s account; removing Webb from the patrol car, he saw blood on the boot and spattered on a pant leg.  He then followed the deputy’s cruiser carrying Webb back to the county jail, where he read the suspect his rights and interviewed him.

At first, Munson said, Webb “pled the Fifth.”  But under continuing questioning began to give details.

“He said he had stomped Artie Bellinger in the head several times with his foot.  He had stomped Scott Littlewood, too.  He intended to kill him, but he survived,” Munson testified.

When it was over, Webb “knew it was bad, that Artie was not alive,” said the investigator.  “He lay down for an hour, then called 911.”

The suspect was held overnight and formally arrested at 11:36 a.m. the next morning, according to Munson.

After questioning both witnesses, Puritz argued Webb’s boots were not “secured,” there was no “first-hand testimony” and thus there was insufficient evidence tieing his client to the scene.

But Judge Schilling, who said this was his first time presiding at a murder case, disagreed, saying the body and Webb’s statements were sufficient to send the case on for grand jury review.

Shackled, Webb is led back to the Otsego County Sheriff’s Department van for transport back to the county jail.

Webb, transported in a sheriff’s department van, had arrived at Hartwick Town Hall on Route 11 at 6:15 this evening.  When Puritz arrived at 6:29, he spoke briefly with his client, still waiting in the van, then entered the low-slung modern building.

Two correctional officers in gray uniforms and two deputies in black then walked Webb – his legs shackled, his hands cuffed and attached to a Velcro strap around his waist – into the courtroom.

Puritz briefed his client: “I want you to stay absolutely quiet no matter what you hear or what you see.  I need you to remain absolutely quiet.”

He continued, “Do you know why we’re here?”  Webb muttered a response, too low for onlookers to hear.

Throughout the hearing, the suspect, wearing a prisoner’s gray-striped jumpsuit and orange rubber shoes, sat silently, expressionless, occasionally closing his eyes.

At the end of the hearing, Puritz could be heard telling Webb not to say anything to anyone at the county jail, as they would be able to testify to what he said.

Attending the hearing were Schilling’s parents and a half-dozen New Lisbon residents.  One, Connie Chambers, said she had known both men for 15 years.  “We just had them at a family barbecue two weeks before this,” she said.

A woman accompanying Chambers, who declined to identify herself, said, “In the 15 years I’ve known Perry, I’ve never seen him get angry.”

“I don’t think he did it,” Chambers said.

Posted

4 Comments

  1. I know the scum bag/He’s been a menace to the community for years. I hope for the sake of the public that he never ,again, sees the light of day.

  2. I’ve known perry for 5 years just saw him a week before it happened . I’ve never seen him angry . He was always kind and helpful .. very nice to my family . This is so out of character for what I know his personality is .

  3. arty..sure did not deserve this.he was a kind sweet soul…..hopefully perry..stays behind bars..or a mental facility for the rest of his life.this affected myy heart so seriously..such a loss of a good man.
    .

  4. Perry broke into my house when he was 21. He was wide-awake-drunk, seemed perfectly normal though confused. His father persuaded me not to press charges: Perry had been experimented on with drugs, when he was in the army, in CA. His Dad wanted to treat him with vitamin therapy. Perry later talked with me, said he didn’t remember breaking in but it was probably he. He seemed such a nice guy. Good looking and intelligent. I was sad to follow his exploits, breaking out of jail, and trapped in a bad life. I’m surprised he’s still alive, at least he was in 2017.

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