NORWICH – The prosecution’s case against accused murderer Peter Wlasiuk continued Tuesday, with Chenango County District Attorney Joseph McBride calling a pair of witnesses whose testimony included allegations of violence between the defendant and his wife, Patricia Wlasiuk, less than a year before her death on April 3, 2002.

Charged with second degree murder, a class A-1 felony, Wlasiuk has twice been convicted of the crime – in 2003 and 2008. Both convictions were successfully appealed, in 2006 and 2011, respectively.

According to the prosecution, Wlasiuk killed his wife at their Oxford home, later engineering an automobile accident at Guilford Lake to hide the crime. In his defense, Wlasiuk has said he and his wife were travelling east in his 1998 GMC pick-up truck on County Road 35 in the Town of Guilford when she swerved to miss a deer and swerved into the lake.

Wlasiuk later changed his story, telling authorities Patricia drove into the lake on purpose as the couple argued. According to McBride, both stories are false, and Wlasiuk’s motives were simple: an unhappy marriage, an extra-marital relationship and an attempt to collect on a $100,000 life insurance policy Wlasiuk had purchased for his wife less than a year before her death.

First to take the stand on Tuesday was Darlene Kellogg, a friend of the couple’s who described Patricia as “happy-go-lucky” and “a good friend.”