Laurens Homicide

Sent To Grand Jury

By LIBBY CUDMORE • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com

ONEONTA – Arguing on behalf of his client, Kevin Perry, defense attorney Andrew Puritz told Town Justice Sean Farrell that Perry, accused of the murders of his parents, Timothy A. Perry, 59, and Solveig E. Perry, 52, on Tuesday, Dec, 12, should be released on his own  recognizance.

“The evidence tying him to the crime is thin, circumstantial evidence,” he said during the 75-minute felony hearing in Oneonta Town Court this morning. “No one saw him in possession of the gun relative to the time of death. We were told by hearsay that he was found in the red Chevy Colorado, but no witness testified that he was operating it. And even if we take it as evidence that he was driving, there is no evidence presented here that he fired the fatal shot.”

“What?” came a reaction from the audience of family and friends of the deceased.

And Farrell disagreed. “It is reasonable to believe that he committed a felony, and I am recommending this case to the grand jury,” he said.

Perry did not look at the small crowd of family and friends gathered in court as five witnesses took the stand.

Perry’s sister, Rebecca, told the judge that when she left the house at 400 New Road that afternoon, her brother was intoxicated and agitated. “He was stumbling all over, his eyes were bloodshot,” she said. “I assumed he was drunk. That was normal for Kevin.”

When she returned from a friend’s house later that night, Perry was gone, as was her father’s red Chevy Colorado pickup. Upon entering the house, she testified, she found her father’s body in the kitchen, surrounded by blood. “I started screaming ‘Dad, Dad, wake up,” she said.

Her two children, Alyssa, 4 and Logan, 1, heard her cries and came out of the back bedroom. She then went to her mother’s room and found her face down on the floor, also deceased, then ran next door to her uncle, Joe Perry’s home to call 911.

For full story, see this week’s Hometown Oneonta

And The Freeman’s Journal, on newsstands Wednesday