Lawyers for a Bronx ex-cop charged with murdering his wife tried a blame-the-victim strategy that fell flat Friday.
Eddy Coello’s attorneys tried to get the charge reduced to manslaughter by arguing the victim made their client fly into a rage and choke her.
They said Coello suffered an “extreme emotional disturbance” because his wife berated him.
But Bronx Supreme Court Justice Ralph Fabrizio wasn’t buying it.
“They fought all the time. What was different?" Fabrizio said. “Is this open season on every marriage?"
Assistant District Attorney Edward Talty noted that the defendant was calm and collected in the days after Tina Adovasio died, not emotionally disturbed.
Testimony in the trial ended Friday with a Westchester County medical examiner on the stand, as defense lawyers suggested that Coello, 41, could have strangled Adovasio without intending to kill her.
There were no fingernail marks on Adovasio's neck, the autopsy doctor testified as a motionless Coello looked on with his hands clasped under his chin.
Defense lawyers and prosecutors will deliver their closing statements Monday. Coello chose not to testify.
Teenagers riding all-terrain vehicles found Adovasio’s body on March 16, 2011, in the woods off the Taconic Parkway in Yorktown Heights. During a phone call to an ex-girlfriend, the former Bronx housing cop confessed that he "snapped" and murdered his wife, the woman testified jurors last week.
Adovasio’s father said he was never fond of the suspect. "It's not only that he killed my daughter, he ruined the whole family," said the dad, Frank Susco. "I never liked that bum when I first met him. I threw him out."
By Daniel Beekman / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
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