Allen Archie Hurley stared stoically at the series of crime-scene photographs of the man federal prosecutors say he stabbed 92 times and left bleeding in a pool of blood in a tiny prison cell in Wayne County.
The convicted bank robber revealed little emotion as images of a slain mobster with ties to the Gambino crime family flashed before him and on numerous other computer screens for the jury to see at his murder trial in federal court in Scranton on Monday.
"Ninety-two times. Ninety-two wounds, ladies and gentlemen," Assistant U.S. attorney John C. Gurganus Jr. said in his opening arguments to the jury of Mr. Hurley's slaying of Joseph O'Kane inside U.S. Penitentiary-Canaan two years ago.
Mr. Gurganus called his first witness Monday after two hours of jury selection and opening arguments before U.S. District Judge Robert D. Mariani, who is presiding over his first murder trial since being sworn in as a judge in November.
Dennis Reicherts, a lieutenant at the high-security federal prison in Canaan Twp., on the outskirts of Waymart, which can house up to about 1,500 inmates, testified that Mr. O'Kane, 43, could not be revived when he and a nurse found him lying on the floor inside Mr. Hurley's prison cell.
"Blood was squirting out the side of his neck" when prison officials tried to move him, Mr. Reicherts testified.
Mr. Hurley, formerly of Maryland, had 24 years ahead of him in the federal penitentiary for carrying out a string of 11 armed bank heists several years ago in Pennsylvania and Maryland that netted him tens of thousands of dollars before he decided to sharpen a pencil-shaped object into a makeshift knife and thrust it into Mr. O'Kane, according to Mr. Gurganus and court documents.
Mr. O'Kane, meanwhile, was serving a life sentence on murder and racketeering charges and had previously testified on behalf of John Gotti Jr. at the New York City mobster's trial, court documents stated.
The inmates had been friends, cooking food and even playing cards together on the day Mr. O'Kane was killed on April 25, 2010, Mr. Gurganus said. But inside Mr. Hurley's prison cell later that day, Mr. Gurganus said Mr. Hurley stabbed Mr. O'Kane in the eyes with the "shank," driving it into his brain.
Mr. Hurley later confessed to an FBI agent and two inmates he killed Mr. O'Kane, Mr. Gurganus said.
Mr. Hurley told the FBI agent he and Mr. O'Kane got into a physical altercation and he did not want Mr. O'Kane coming back after him later so he decided to "finish him," Mr. Gurganus said.
During the fight, Mr. O'Kane went into a "blind rage" and told Mr. Hurley "your family's dead," according to court papers.
Jurors grimaced at the gruesome pictures of the slain Mr. O'Kane - blood smeared across his cheeks, puncture wounds scattered all over his body, his blood slopped on Mr. Hurley's white prison sheets.
For "plunging a knife into another human being," Mr. Gurganus appealed to the jury to convict Mr. Hurley of second-degree murder, a charge that - linked to his previous two felony bank robbery convictions - supports the imposition of a mandatory life sentence.
Meanwhile, Mr. Hurley's public defender, Thomas Thornton, argued Mr. Hurley was defending himself.
The trial is expected to wrap up by Friday.
A federal grand jury indicted Mr. Hurley in December. He has pleaded not guilty.
Contact the writer: smcconnell@timesshamrock.com