Murder suspect is said to have been called shortly after his wife was shot dead

Shortly after Louise Weis-Edmonds died of a gunshot wound to the back of the head on March 25, 2014, Kandace Crouse received a strange call from a man in the victim’s North Strabane home.

“I killed Louise. I’m sorry,” Crouse said the man told her, and she thought it was a prank.

Crouse thought nothing of it until she saw on the news the next morning that 49-year-old Weis-Edmonds had been shot and her husband, Scott Edmonds, was charged with murder.

Crouse then looked at the call log again and compared the phone number to a number that had called her husband, Scott, hours earlier. Edmonds, a trained physical therapist, called the morning before Weis-Edmonds’ death to cancel an appointment with Scott Crouse, who was recovering from recent hip surgery.

“It was very monotonous,” Kandace Crouse said of the man’s voice in the phone call she received later that evening. “It was very quiet.”

Although she did not recognize the voice, Crouse and her husband went to North Strabane police to report the strange encounter. The couple testified about the experience Thursday on the second day of Edmonds’ murder trial in Washington County Court of Common Pleas.

Detective Michael Lukanski of the North Strabane police testified that he questioned Edmonds, who appeared to be drunk in the hours following his wife’s death, when the suspect began talking about his wife.

“I did it. It’s all my fault,” Lukanski said, recounting what Edmonds had told him.

Edmonds argued that despite a lavish lifestyle, he did not give his wife the emotional support she needed, Lukanski said. But Edmonds also asked Lukanski where his wife was, even though several officers had told him she had died. Lukanski testified that Edmonds then hypothesized that Weis-Edmonds had killed herself with the .380 pistol in their home.

“I’m done,” Edmonds told Lukanski during the interview. “My life is over.”

Lukanski said that during questioning, he pressed Edmonds for an explanation about Weis-Edmonds’ death, since there were only two people in the house at the time and the gun was found in the pocket of a pool table in another room.

“What are you asking me?” Edmonds said during the police interrogation.

“Did you shoot Louise?” asked Lukanski.

“Did I shoot Louise?” Edmonds asked rhetorically.

“Did you shoot Louise?” Lukanski asked again.

“No,” Edmonds replied.

But a medical examiner who reviewed the case concluded it was unlikely she could have shot herself. Dr. Jennifer Hammers, who was recently called as a witness following the death of Dr. Cyril Wecht, ruled Weis-Edmonds’ death a homicide, saying she found the gun had been pressed against the back of the victim’s head, leaving a muzzle mark.

“Most self-inflicted wounds do not usually involve the back of the head,” Hammers said as he showed the jury the autopsy photos.

She was then presented with a replica handgun by First Assistant District Attorney Leslie Mylan to demonstrate how this would happen. Hammers noted that the handgun would likely be slightly rotated and would not produce the “straight up” gunshot wound that Weis-Edmonds suffered.

“It’s almost impossible to hold the gun without tilting it left or right,” Hammers said. “It’s an uncomfortable position.”

Mylan then asked North Strabane police Officer Brian Hart to demonstrate the most likely scenario, where someone is standing behind the victim and pulling the trigger while the gun is pressed to the back of her head. Hammers said the bullet went through the top of Weis-Edmonds’ spinal cord and brain stem before lodging in her head. She stated Weis-Edmonds likely died almost immediately and would not have been able to move the gun to another room.

“She would have been immediately incapacitated … without any voluntary movement, not even by the movement of the weapon,” Hammers testified.

Edmonds, now 60, faces one count of manslaughter and one count of tampering with evidence. He has been held without bail in the Washington County Jail since his arrest following his wife’s death.

Testimony will continue this morning. The trial, presided over by Judge John DiSalle, is expected to last until next week.