Testimony of witnesses contested in murder case

Jace Radke

Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2002 | 9:29 a.m.

District Judge Kathy Hardcastle was expected to rule today on whether key witness testimony will be allowed in the trial of a man accused of raping and killing a teenage girl in a Henderson restroom.

Defense attorneys for Steven Finnegan, 32, challenged the admission of evidence provided by three people: a sexual abuse expert; a woman who testified that a teenage Finnegan had kissed her when she was in her early teens; and a friend who said Finnegan confided to him a decade ago that he had once raped someone.

Finnegan is charged with sexual assault, first-degree kidnapping and murder in the death of 16-year-old Jessica Heaney, a Silverado High School student who was found dead on March 7, 1998, in a clubhouse restroom at the Arbor Court condominiums.

Heaney had been sodomized and strangled. Two years later fingerprints found at the scene were matched to Finnegan, who was living in the condominium complex at the time.

After Hardcastle rules on whether evidence of past crimes will be admitted, jury selection will begin, with opening arguments scheduled for Wednesday.

Special Public Defender Lee McMahon asked Hardcastle to deny some of the evidence that Chief Deputy District Attorney Doug Herndon presented during the three-day evidentiary hearing. The testimony included multiple witnesses who alleged public masturbation by Finnegan.

"There is an abundance of evidence to suggest that the defendant has been involved in longstanding sexually deviant behavior," Herndon said, noting the defendant's two convictions for open and gross lewdness. "We're not only trying to prove the identity of Jessica's killer, but prove the identity of the sex offender who perpetrated this particularly violent and brutal attack."

McMahon challenged the testimony offered. He noted that the woman who said she was kissed by Finnegan as a teen was not attacked, and sex abuse expert Victoria Graff had not interviewed or evaluated Finnegan.

Graff, executive director of Family and Child Treatment, a local nonprofit that deals with sexual abuse, testified that sexual abusers can graduate from more minor offenses, such as exhibitionism and public masturbation, to rape.

McMahon also said there were weaknesses in the story of Edward Joseph Korn, who testified that he was friends with Finnegan in high school and that the two used methamphetamine. Korn said that one night, years before Heaney's murder, Finnegan told him he had raped someone, but would give no other details.

"Mr. Korn says the defendant admitted to raping someone in 1989. That's a very long time ago, and there are no details or complaints against the defendant."

However, McMahon did not dispute the testimony of police officers with Metro, Henderson and Clark County Parks and Recreation, who testified about instances in which they encountered Finnegan naked or partially naked in a car.