The alleged killer of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia pediatrician and Perelman School of Medicine graduate student Melissa Ketunuti had his first court hearing Wednesday.
Jason Smith, a 37-year-old exterminator from Levittown, Pa., was arrested and formally charged two days after Ketunuti’s murder on Jan. 21 and has been in jail ever since. He is charged with five counts related to her death, including murder, arson and abuse of corpse.
The hearing, which lasted approximately a half hour, gave the prosecution — represented by Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Selber — a chance to get the testimony of two detectives, as well as for the defense to attempt to remove one of the charges.
Smith sat silently throughout the course of the hearing.
The biggest revelation was the full statement of Jason Smith on the night of his arrest in January. Read by Detective Edward Tolliver — one of two detectives in the room when Smith gave the statement — it details the confession Smith gave about allegedly murdering Ketunuti.
According to Smith’s sworn statement, in the preceding minutes to him killing Ketunuti, they argued twice — first over Ketunuti’s dog bothering him and then over criticism Smith gave to her over the repairs her basement needed.
Ketunuti “wouldn’t move out of the way. She said that I shouldn’t be an exterminator, that I didn’t know what I was doing. I grabbed her and moved her out of the way. I grabbed her by the neck and started choking her. I realized there was blood on the ground,” Smith said in the statement following his arrest.
In the statement, Smith also recounted Ketunuti saying, “Please stop, please stop. I’m sorry. I’ll do whatever you want,” as he was in the process of strangling her.
Besides killing her, he admitted to tying her up with rope and lighting her on fire.
Asked why he lit her on fire, Smith said he “freaked the f*ck out” and was trying to destroy evidence.
Detective Henry Glenn recalled being the first investigator to arrive at her Naudain Street home. He said that burns covered over 50 percent of her body.
According to Glenn, firefighters had to douse her body with water from a kitchen pot in order to extinguish the fire, which was still burning when they arrived.
In the four pictures he was asked to describe in his testimony, he also said that the leather strap Ketunuti was strangled with was consistent with other horse riding equipment found in her basement.
Ketunuti was found in her rowhouse on the 1700 block on Naudain Street in Center City on Jan. 21 after a fire crew was called. Prosecutors say that her cause of death was strangulation.
Smith was arrested two days after Ketunuti’s killing after police used surveillance cameras from the nearby area.
Her killing made national news and compelled the Philadelphia Police Department to launch a special task force of homicide detectives.
Ketenuti, 35, had been at CHOP since 2008, and was pursuing her Master of Science degree in clinical epidemiology at the Perelman School of Medicine.
In the hearing, Smith’s attorneys did not dispute the murder charge. They did, however, try to have the arson charged removed, arguing that Smith started the fire only to burn Ketunuti, not the building.
Selber argued that the paper and paint in the basement she was burned in posed a threat. “The fact the house and the whole block didn’t catch fire is nothing more good luck,” she said.
James Funt — one of Smith’s lawyers — declined comment on the specifics of the case in an interview with the media immediately following the hearing.
Smith will be formally arraigned on May 1, when he will be have the chance to plead guilty or not guilty.
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