POUGHKEEPSIE – The murder trial of 43-year-old William Dicke continued on Tuesday and was dominated by the testimony of a state trooper.
Investigator Matthew Radewitz was the first investigator at the Mill Road apartment in Rhinebeck where 35-year-old Danielle Distefano was found lifeless in the kitchen. Dicke, her boyfriend at the time, was the 911 caller who said he discovered his girlfriend’s body in the apartment on January 22, 2022.
Dicke is accused of running over his girlfriend and then dragging her inside her apartment, suffering from serious internal bleeding, and leaving her to die.
Investigator Radewitz told the jurors that he arrived at the scene shortly after the uniformed troopers because it was considered a suspicious death. Dicke had led the first trooper to Distefano’s partially-clothed body, before being asked to leave the premises.
During a subsequent conversation with a trooper, Dicke said that he and the victim had been out drinking the night before and without being asked, Dicke offered a statement that Distefano had been known to use cocaine.
The investigator examined Distefano in the kitchen, he observed her pants pulled down and her shirt pulled up. The original trooper had testified that it “looked staged.” The investigator noted heavy bruising on the victim’s torso and throat. He then testified that he noticed a “white powdery substance near her left nostril, along with a small chunk of a white substance further inside of the nostril.” He found that to be suspicious, noting that it would have dissolved if it was ingested while the victim was alive. “It appears to have been placed there post-mortem.” He also told the court that during the autopsy, the victim’s body ” Was in really bad shape and had suffered from blunt force trauma to the pelvic region and was extremely bruised.”
A former bartender by the name of “Lee” had worked at the Flatiron Restaurant in Red Hook where the defendant and victtim were drinking prior to her death also testified. He told of how he had visited Dicke’s house in the early morning hours of January 22, noting that Dicke was home alone with his 14-year-old son. The bartender pointed out that Dicke had told him that he and the victim had a fight and he left her outside her apartment earlier that night. At approximately 5:30 a.m. on January 22, Lee said that Dicke asked him to ride with him to Danielle’s house to check on her. He told the prosecutors that they didn’t park on the same side of the building as the victim’s apartment and Dicke was “looking all around” as they sat in the van, never going to check on Distefano. When they returned to Dicke’s house, Lee returned to his home, only to receive a call later from Dicke saying that “Danielle had overdosed and died.”
The final witness for the day was Dicke’s 14-year-old son, who told the court that he didn’t really get along with the victim, especially “when she was drinking.” He told the jurors that he was awake when his father and Lee left for Danielle’s apartment. When the prosecutor asked the child if he saw anything before his father left, he told the court “Dad took a clear plastic bag with powder in it from the cabinet on the top of the refrigerator when they were leaving.” When asked to further describe the contents, the somewhat timid teen said, “It was a white powder.”
Dicke was returned to the Dutchess County Jail where he has been for nearly a year when testimony concluded, Dutchess County Court Judge Jessica Segal said that the trial is scheduled to resume on Wednesday at 9:30. The trial has been scheduled to begin at 9:30 everyday since beginning and has yet to start before 10 a.m.
