Lawyer: Man didn't kill, only buried her

It was "bad judgment, perhaps," for a Medford man to bury a woman in a shallow grave in the woods near his home, his defense attorney said Wednesday, urging jurors to look past that and acquit him of murder.

The fact that Chad Johnson buried Jennifer Papain, 26, of North Patchogue, and then later led police to her body "is separate and distinct from intending to kill or causing her death," argued William Ferris in his closing argument to a jury before Suffolk County Court Judge Gary Weber.

Johnson, 23, is accused of strangling Papain in March 2010 after, police say, she refused to give him a partial refund for a sex act he paid for but did not complete. Ferris said that Johnson's 10-page confession was fabricated by police who beat him until he signed it, pointing to marks on his face and neck in photos taken afterward.

Assistant District Attorney Todd Pettigrew ridiculed that suggestion, noting the confession was full of detail that detectives couldn't have known, such as the refund request.

"He had four scratch marks on his neck?" Pettigrew asked, scratching his own neck. "Now I have four scratch marks on my neck . . . The red mark on his forehead? That's a zit that he picked at."

Pettigrew said the defense argument that Papain simply died of a drug overdose in Johnson's presence makes no sense.

"He just sits and there and watches her die?" Pettigrew said. "He doesn't call 911 or get help?"

If that had happened, Pettigrew said, Johnson at worst would have pushed her out of his car in Bay Shore, instead of driving 25 miles to Medford to bury her down the street from his home.

"To him, Jennifer Papain was nobody," Pettigrew said. "She was garbage. He dumped her body, smoked his weed and went on with his life."

Ferris noted that medical examiners found no physical evidence that Papain was strangled or choked.

"There's no evidence here that Chad Johnson did anything to cause her death," Ferris said.

But that was only because her body was so decomposed when it was found two months later that such signs no longer existed, Pettigrew said.

He noted that in taped calls Johnson made from the Suffolk County jail, he had said he initially wanted to plead guilty. "Give him what he wants," he told jurors.

Deliberations resume Friday. If convicted, Johnson would face 25 years to life.