HACKENSACK, N.J. (AP) -- A jury convicted a Florida man Friday of murdering his former son-in-law, rejecting the man's defense that he was too fat to have run up and down a flight of stairs to commit the crime and make a quick getaway.
Edward Ates looked down and shook his head in court as he was found guilty of murder and weapons counts for killing Paul Duncsak, who was shot six times at his home in Ramsey, about 25 miles northwest of New York.
Ates' "too fat to kill" defense provided an angle to the trial that attracted attention from the news media but didn't sway the jury of eight women and four men, who reached a verdict on their second day of deliberations after a six-week trial.
Ates had argued he didn't have the energy to accurately shoot Duncsak from a perch on the staircase at Duncsak's home in August 2006. He was 62 years old, 5-feet-8 and 285 pounds at the time of the murder.
Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Wayne Mello termed Ates' defense "nonsense" and credited dogged work by investigators, particularly Det. Sgt. Russ Christiana, that built a circumstantial case around cell phone records and computer forensics.
Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
