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Victim's daughter, police testify in Fedoruk trial

The Daily News - 9/28/2016

Wednesday should be a big day for Sergey Fedoruk's defense.

Fedoruk, 43, of Kelso is charged with second-degree murder in the Aug. 1, 2011, death of his brother-in-law, Serhiy Ishchenko, 48, also of Kelso.

On Wednesday, defense attorneys Thad Scudder and Patricia Fassett will call their mental health expert, psychologist Kenneth Muscatel, to discuss Fedoruk and his long history of mental illness. While Muscatel's testimony will be key for the defense, Scudder and Fassett are not pursuing a not guilty by reason of insanity defense as previously planned. They declined in an interview to elaborate.

The same day, the state will call its mental health expert, Western State Hospital psychologist Ray Hendrickson, as well as DNA and blood spatter experts. Pacific County Deputy Prosecutor Don Richter is expected to rest his case Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Richter called several members of law enforcement who responded to the crime scene at residence along Hometown Drive in the Ostrander area north of Kelso. They testified about evidence they collected and photographs they took at the scene as well as their memory of Fedoruk's behavior that day.

Ishchenko's body was found covered with brush behind the house. Medical examiner Cliff Nelson told jurors Ishchenko died of a combination of blunt force trauma and strangulation injuries. Fedoruk previously told psychologists that he killed Ishchenko during a fight at their house. Both Ishchenko and Fedoruk, part of a large Ukrainian family that settled in Cowlitz and Clark counties, had been living at the home with relatives.

Fedoruk was convicted of the murder in 2012, but the state Court of Appeals ordered a new trial in 2014 due to prosecutorial misconduct and an inadequate defense.

Tuesday, Cowlitz County Sheriff's Detective Cory Robinson and Deputy Kimberly Beedle testified that Fedoruk, who was on the front porch when police met him, seemed nervous and agitated when they arrived to investigate the crime. Beedle said she didn't know why.

Robinson detained Fedoruk in the back of his patrol car. Robinson testified that when he returned to get something from his patrol car, Fedoruk voluntarily spoke to him. Fedoruk spoke about his sister and then, according to Robinson, said, " 'I never touch him. I not touch him never.' "

Robinson did not address who "him" referred to.

On Tuesday, Ishchenko's daughter Katerina Ishchenko testified about the last time she saw her father: when the two dined together the night before he died. She said the two drove to Vancouver and ate together at Olive Garden and went shopping.

Ishchenko's daughter, then a college student at Lower Columbia College, told Richter that her father was calm as usual the evening before his death, though he did, she said, seem to be deep in thought about something.

"He seemed not distracted but in deep thought," she said. "I could tell there was something he was thinking about. But it wasn't unusual."