Man’s murder appeal in ’77 case denied

By KRISTIE LINDEN
klinden@yourmvi.com
A Dunlevy man’s latest appeal of his 2011 murder conviction has been denied by the Superior Court of Pennsylvania.
Robert Urwin Jr., 62, was found guilty of third-degree murder and criminal homicide in October 2011 in the death of 16-year-old Mary Gency of North Charleroi on Feb. 13, 1977.
Urwin chose to have a non-jury trial and was sentenced to 10-20 years imprisonment by former Washington County Judge Pozonsky in January 2012.
Five months after that ruling Pozonsky was removed from hearing criminal cases by former President Judge Debbie O’Dell Seneca after he ordered the destruction of evidence in 16 drug cases he handled. Pozonsky resigned the next month and within a year he was charged with stealing cocaine from evidence he’d taken from cases he handled. He was found guilty in 2015 and served 30 days behind bars.
Urwin appealed his conviction in county court in 2017 claiming Pozonsky was using stolen cocaine during the proceedings against Urwin and was incompetent. Urwin also claimed his attorneys were ineffective and that prosecutors were too slow in testing the DNA evidence that connected him to the case.
Washington County Judge John DiSalle rejected those arguments and Urwin’s conviction for killing Gency, his pregnant ex-girlfriend, stands.
Gency was raped and died of multiple skull fractures and the coroner found that she was five to six weeks pregnant at the time of her death.
Gency was missing for six days before her nude body was found in a Fallowfield Township field.
The case went cold for decades until Gency’s clothing was submitted for DNA testing in 2009.
The victim’s underwear was tested and it contained a mixture of DNA that matched Urwin and David Davoli, who was also charged in Gency’s death in 2010. The DNA of a third person has never been identified.
Davoli testified that he and Urwin both had sex with Gency before Urwin dragged her from a car and smashed her in the back of the head with an unidentified tool.
Initially, Davoli was the prime suspect and was charged with the crime in 1977, but charges were dropped due to insufficient evidence.
After the 2010 charges were filed, Davoli agreed to testify against Urwin and the homicide charges against him were dropped. He pleaded guilty to hindering Urwin’s apprehension and was sentenced to two to four years in prison. Davoli was released in 2012.
In its decision filed Tuesday, the Superior Court stated it agreed with the findings of DiSalle in the 2017 appeal and found no proof to support the claim that Pozonsky was under the influence of cocaine during the Urwin trial.
Urwin also claimed in his appeal that his choice of a non-jury trial wasn’t made knowingly, voluntarily or intelligently because he wasn’t aware at the time of Pozonsky’s conduct. The court states Urwin failed to raise this objection in a timely manner, and reiterated that the court found no evidence of Pozonsky’s misconduct in this case.
Urwin also argued that his original trial attorney was ineffective because he didn’t file a motion objecting to the decades-long delay in arresting Urwin. Urwin claimed the materials tested for DNA could have been tested as early as 1999, but were not.
The Superior Court cites testimony from a detective from the state police cold case unit who said the DNA test used on Gency’s clothing was not available here until 2008 or 2009. The tests were conducted in 2009.
Urwin continues to serve his sentence in SCI Somerset according to online court documents.