Suspect in December murder faces death penalty
By KRISTIE LINDEN
klinden@yourmvi.com
The Coal Center man who is charged with the stabbing death of his neighbor in December will face the death penalty if convicted.
Washington County’s First Assistant District Attorney Jason Walsh notified Dylan Lesnik, 29, of Spring Street that he is eligible for the death penalty if convicted in the Dec. 18 murder of 27-year-old Marshall Craig.
Lesnik is charged with homicide, theft and abuse of a corpse.
During his formal arraignment Monday, Lesnik was notified of two aggravating circumstances that made his case eligible for the death penalty — that the murder allegedly happened during the commission of another felony and was done by means of torture.
Walsh said there are two felonies Lesnik is accused of committing during the murder, burglary/robbery and aggravated assault. Lesnik is accused of torturing Craig by repeatedly stabbing him, both before and after his death.
Craig’s murder came at the end of a week in which Lesnik had been on the run after allegedly assaulting his pregnant girlfriend Cassie King.
Lesnik and his friend, Troy Chiera, 34, of Brownsville, recorded King, who was nine weeks pregnant, as she was on the ground bleeding, telling her to say her ex-boyfriend assaulted her, police said.
King allegedly told police Lesnik said he was going to kill her while he was assaulting her and she grabbed a knife in self defense. Instead, police said, Lesnik grabbed the knife and attempted to stab King in the stomach with it, and slashed across her face and neck.
While she was bleeding and attempting to get downstairs on her own, Chiera entered the home and told King he was an EMT, police said. Chiera allegedly advised Lesnik to get rid of the knife and then the pair of men recorded her while telling her to say her ex-boyfriend “did this to her,” the complaint states.
The men allegedly fled together and King was treated for a severed artery in her neck and a broken bone in her spinal cord.
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