COURT HOUSE — John Cavicchio III was shot once in the head in a wooded area along Pennsylvania Avenue, in Middle Township on Dec. 10, 2006.
He died the following day at AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center.
Almost two years later, Seth G. Cooper is scheduled to go to trial Dec. 1 for the alleged murder of 23-year-old Cavicchio.
The homicide investigation revealed the shooting occurred following a confrontation between two groups of young men on Pennsylvania Avenue, between Burleigh and Whitesboro, prosecutors said.
First Assistant Prosecutor J. David Meyer argued then that Cavicchio and two other men, Ernest Dominguez and Charles Griggs III, traveled together to a wooded area anticipating a fight over a mutual girlfriend, but Cooper was lying in wait with a gun.
Cooper, who was 18 at the time, is alleged to have shot Cavicchio with a .32 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver.
Cooper’s defense attorney, John Tumelty, has argued that his client was about to be run over by the car Cavicchio was in when he fired the shot. The gun was fired through the passenger-side window of the car. Cavicchio, who was in the driver’s seat, was struck in the head.
Cavicchio died at AtlantiCare’s trauma unit on Dec. 11. Cooper fled and was captured Dec. 23 at a South Carolina restaurant.
Raymond A. Fryar, one of four men indicted in the shooting, pled guilty Jan. 31 to hindering the apprehension of Cooper.
Fryar, 22, of Rio Grande, told Superior Court Judge Albert J. Garofolo that he and Cooper went to Atlantic City after the shooting and then traveled to his mother’s house in Philadelphia.
Meyer said the plea deal hinged on Fryar testifying against codefendants, Seth Cooper and his brother Riley L. Cooper, and Charles Griggs III.
As a condition of his guilty plea, Fryar will be expected to testify on his knowledge of events of the Dec. 10 shooting, including witnessing Cooper firing the handgun that allegedly killed Cavicchio.
In recent weeks approaching Cooper’s trial, Superior Court Judge Raymond Batten ruled that jurors will not be told that the .32-caliber handgun used to kill Cavicchio was found along with a .25-caliber semi-automatic handgun hidden in a plastic bag under a collapsed shed.
Batten found that no one could place the second gun at the crime scene and there was no evidence who owned the gun or how it came to be in the plastic bag with the .32-caliber revolver.
And on Nov. 12, Griggs, who was a passenger in the car Cavicchio was driving, pleaded guilty to providing false testimony to investigators about the details surrounding the night of the shooting.
Griggs, 25, of Wildwood, originally told a detective from the Cape May County Prosecutor’s Office in December 2006 he could positively identify Cooper as the shooter. He also claimed that Cooper pointed the handgun at his head before firing the handgun multiple times at Ernest Dominquez.
But on Aug. 27, Griggs denied he changed his statement and denied that he could indentify Cooper as the shooter and further denied that the handgun was ever pointed at him.
Griggs recently gave investigators a third statement and acknowledged giving prior false statements.
Griggs will be sentenced to credit for time served until Dec. 19 in the Cape May County Jail, which will amount to 60 to 90 days.
In exchange, Griggs agreed to testify truthfully, whether he is called as a defense or prosecution witness, during Cooper’s murder trial.
Contact Suit at: (609) 886-8600 ext. 25 or lsuit@cmcherald.com
