STROUDSBURG - "Are you scared?" Monroe County First Assistant District Attorney Michael Mancuso asked Arthur Schirmer at the start of his cross-examination Friday.
"Nervous," the 64-year-old former pastor replied.
"Not scared?" Mr. Mancuso asked.
"Nervous."
"Nervous you won't be believed, right?"
"Nervous," Mr. Schirmer said.
The exchange came minutes after the former pastor of Reeders United Methodist Church - accused of murdering his second wife in 2008 - took the stand in his own defense.
Over the course of about an hour of direct examination by his attorney, Brandon Reish, Mr. Schirmer provided new details on several of the key elements of the case against him, which holds that he bludgeoned Betty Jean Schirmer nearly to death then loaded her into the couple's PT Cruiser in the parsonage garage and staged a crash on state Route 715 to explain her death.
The investigation into Mrs. Schirmer's death began with the October 2008 suicide of Joseph Musante - the husband of Mr. Schirmer's then-mistress and current fiancee, Cindy Moyer Musante - and ultimately spawned a Lebanon County investigation into the 1999 death of Mr. Schirmer's first wife, Jewel Schirmer.
The criminal homicide charge levied against him last year in that case claims he also killed Jewel Schirmer and made her death appear like an accident, in that case a fall down stairs.
A boxer in his high-school years, when it came time for Mr. Mancuso, the prosecutor, to square up with the target of a murder case that called on over 40 prosecution witnesses, he left the charming courtesy with which he treated dozens of witnesses at the state's table and went after Mr. Schirmer.
Blood
One of the biggest pieces of the prosecution's case are the blood stains discovered in the parsonage garage that, to the state police forensics investigator who documented them, appeared to have come from Mrs. Schirmer as her husband carried her into the PT Cruiser the night of her death.
During an interview with state police the day those stains were discovered in December 2008, Mr. Schirmer explained that his wife had cut herself while the couple moved a woodpile out of the garage on the advice of an exterminator.
On the witness stand Friday, Mr. Schirmer provided previously unheard details of that accident, claiming he and his wife had moved one load of wood out of the garage and started on a second when the pile fell down and cut his wife's forearm.
"Almost immediately there was blood there," he said of his wife's wound.
After first heading toward the garage's bay door, Mrs. Schirmer walked back to its rear door, outside and into the parsonage's kitchen, where her husband helped her bandage the wound, Mr. Schirmer testified.
Later, Mr. Schirmer finished moving the wood pile himself, swept out the garage and Mrs. Schirmer wiped up her blood from its floor - which would explain the evidence of a clean-up attempt discovered by state police.
Mr. Schirmer never mentioned to investigators several of the details included in his re-telling of the story on the stand, Mr. Mancuso pointed out upon cross-examination.
"I didn't remember at that time," Mr. Schirmer said.
Mr. Mancuso pointed out some of the new details, including the change in direction Mrs. Schirmer made when leaving the garage, which would help explain the amount and location of the blood evidence found there.
"Doesn't that sound like you're trying to make your story fit the evidence?" he asked.
Mr. Schirmer disagreed.
"You had years to put that story together since you were arrested. Isn't that correct?" Mr. Mancuso asked.
"I had years," said Mr. Schirmer. "I don't think I put the story together."
Crash
Another key component of the case against Mr. Schirmer is the circumstances of the crash he claims killed his wife.
When questioned by authorities in 2008 and over the course of the investigation, Mr. Schirmer claimed he had been driving at about 50 mph when he swerved around a deer and hit the guardrail at about 45 mph.
State police accident reconstructionists later concluded that the PT Cruiser's speed at impact was actually somewhere between 18 and 22 mph.
On Friday, Mr. Reish, the defense attorney, began his questioning of Mr. Schirmer with the crash, and his client explained the event in detail.
While driving north on state Route 715, headed for Pocono Medical Center where he had convinced his wife to seek treatment for a jaw ailment that woke her in pain that morning, Mr. Schirmer had to swerve the PT Cruiser around a deer that came out into the road.
"(Mrs. Schirmer) had just unclasped her seat belt and as she did so a deer came out from the right," he said.
Mr. Schirmer tried to get the car under control while holding one arm on his wife, who had been tossed around by the swerving, he said.
"Betty was kind of moving back and forth," he said.
Upon cross-examination, Mr. Mancuso pointed out that Mr. Schirmer's claim that he swerved across the road twice before crashing was a new addition to his story.
"Your memory's better now than it was back then. That's what you want (the jury) to believe?" Mr. Mancuso asked.
"I've had a lot of time to think about it," Mr. Schirmer said.
"You've had a lot of time to prepare a defense."
"I'm not preparing anything," Mr. Schirmer said.
During direct examination, Mr. Reish asked his client why, after the car crashed into the guardrail, he did not use the cellphone he had in the car to dial 911.
"I don't know. I was tending to Betty and then someone was at the door," he said, referring to Stan Dickerson, a passerby who arrived at the crash and later called 911.
Though the PT Cruiser - which suffered relatively minor damage considering the extent of his wife's injuries, previous witnesses testified - was still drivable and its headlights worked, Mr. Schirmer did not attempt to drive the vehicle to the hospital, Mr. Mancuso said.
"Bets' was hurt," Mr. Schirmer said.
"Bets' was hurt and you sat there," Mr. Mancuso said.
"I sat there because Bets' was hurt," Mr. Schirmer said. "I didn't know the car was drivable."
The jury is expected to receive the case Tuesday after closing arguments, as courts will be closed Monday for Martin Luther King Day.
Contact the writer: domalley@timesshamrock.com, @domalleytt on Twitter