SMETHPORT – The woman who admitted to lying to police shortly
after a Kane Borough Police officer was killed in 1999, denied
Thursday in McKean County Court that she ever admitted months later
to pulling the trigger.

Becky Lucrezi-Olson of Coudersport was on the stand Thursday
morning for more than two hours denying she admitted to shooting
Kane Borough Police Officer Steve Jerman. Marian Kay Nersinger of
Holley, N.Y., and Michelle Nelson of Scio, N.Y., are on trial for
perjury for allegedly lying when they testified in Post Conviction
Relief Act hearings for Timothy Williams. Williams was found guilty
of third-degree murder in Jerman’s death. His case has been on
appeal.

In testimony that at times seemed contentious, Lucrezi-Olson
explained how she did lie to police, but then told the truth
because “I didn’t want to lie anymore.”

Lucrezi-Olson, now 24, also provided a timeline of where she
lived and worked from February 1999 to January 2001, to attempt to
prove that she was not at the Sheetz in Coudersport when Nersinger
and Nelson say she was.

Her timeline included being at two drug and alcohol
rehabilitation facilities and a half-way house. Throughout this
time, she said she didn’t like to talk about what happened when
Jerman died.

“I tried to avoid that,” said Lucrezi-Olson, who was 17 at the
time of the shooting. “I didn’t want to think about it.”

She said after the shooting, her parents were more strict with
her.

“I wasn’t allowed to go and do anything,” she said, adding she
did go to Alonon meetings. She also stopped going to school because
“everybody thought that would be the best thing to do.”

When in Erie, she was supervised by the Erie County Probation
Department for an incident that occurred before the shooting and
had to check in and have any trip out of Erie approved.

She left Coudersport because, “I wanted to get out of there. I
needed a change. I needed help. I needed something.”

Jurors seemed to take more notes during Lucrezi-Olson’s
testimony. A recent court case paved the way for jurors in
Pennsylvania to take notes during trials that are a certain
length.

Lucrezi-Olson also explained that she and Matt Seeley were
having sex in the backseat of the car when Williams was pulled
over. She said she was getting dressed when Jerman was approaching
the car.

When asked what happened next, Lucrezi-Olson shook her head,
looked in a distance and said, “I said ‘shoot him, Tim. Shoot
him.'”

She also admitted to lying to the state police following the
shooting.

“I was stupid. I lied … I was 17-years-old,” she explained to
McKean County District Attorney John Pavlock.

She eventually came forward with the truth because, “I just had
to. I couldn’t just keep lying.”

Those lies included saying Williams kidnapped she and Seeley and
he hit her with the gun.

On cross-examination, defense attorney Sam Stretton attempted to
drive home the point that she didn’t recant her earlier statements
until she was promised immunity.

“You both thought he was dead,” Stretton said of Lucrezi-Olson
and Seeley. Since Williams was critically injured and she thought
she was pregnant with Seeley’s child, “you placed the blame on
him.”

“We placed the blame on him because he did it,” Lucrezi-Olson
countered.

She and Stretton also sparred over how much she drank in the
months following the murder.

“I told you I didn’t drink in Coudersport,” she said. “Monroe
County. That’s far away from Potter County.”

As far as her relationship with the defendants, Lucrezi-Olson
said that she didn’t know Nelson, but “now I do.” She knew
Nersinger because Lucrezi-Olson slept with Nersinger’s ex-boyfriend
when she was 15, Lucrezi-Olson said.

“I didn’t see her after that,” she said.

Since some of the testimony was intertwined between this case
and the Williams case, McKean County Judge John Yoder warned the
jury that they should concentrate on the case at hand and view the
decision in the Williams case as final.

In the afternoon, the defense took over with nine people
testifying that they had either overheard Lucrezi-Olson admit to
the shooting directly or heard her talk about it.

This includes Christopher Addy of Erie, who said he was trying
to get close with Lucrezi-Olson when she allegedly admitted to him
that she had the gun and shot Jerman.

She said she had blood on her hands; that made her disgusted,
Addy said.

Holly Duell said she heard Lucrezi-Olson say in a bathroom at a
Wellsville, N.Y., nightclub she kept playing the murder in her mind
and seeing the gun in her hand.

Jamie Seeley Harmon and Amy Bittner also allegedly overheard
Lucrezi-Olson talk in the bathroom at the Coudersport High School
the Monday after the shooting say “If anyone knew the truth about
what happened, I would be dead,” but could not put Lucrezi-Olson’s
words into context.

Pavlock asked some of the witnesses why it took them so long to
come forward. Most said they had problems in their own lives and
didn’t want to get involved.

Another witness, Tait Kerr, has not shown to testify yet;
attorneys will deal with her absence today when court resumes at
8:30 a.m.

It appears the defendants will not take the stand in their own
defense.

Closing arguments are also expected to be heard today followed
by Yoder charging the jury.