Bernard McShane of Arizona may have to tell a jury he did not kill 5-year-old Timothy Wiltsey in 1991 in New Jersey. Watch video
NEW BRUNSWICK -- Who is Bernard McShane?
According to Damien Dowdle, he could be the Arizona ex-con who killed 5-year-old Timothy Wiltsey in 1991 -- whose mother, Michelle Lodzinski, is now on trial for his murder.
Dowdle, also from Arizona, was cleared on Tuesday by Superior Court Judge Dennis Nieves to tell a jury that McShane told him when the two shared a cell in a county jail in Arizona in 1991 that he killed a young boy at an event in Atlantic City in 1991, strangling him after he kidnapped him from his parents.
McShane may take the stand in several weeks, after jury selection is complete.
If McShane does testify, it may be for the state, which says it is Lodzinski, and not McShane, that killed her son because the child was interfering with her social life.
That's because McShane denied, in an interview with prosecutors, that he killed a child or told McShane that he did it, according to Nieves. He also denied being in New Jersey. He said he was in Atlanta, Ga. and in Jim Thorpe, Pa. while he was on the lam from a robbery sentence in 1991.
Dowdle, who testified at a hearing last month in New Brunswick, contacted Lodzinski's attorney, Gerald Krovatin, last fall to tell him that McShane's admissions to him were similar to the story Lodzinski told police in 1991 about her son's disappearance.
Dowdle said he had been in state prison in Arizona for bank robbery for 18 years and had no access to the Internet until he was released. When he searched the Internet for cases similar to the story McShane told him, he said he found the Wiltsey case.
Lodzinski told police her son disappeared on May 25, 1991 from a carnival at a park in Sayreville while she was in line to buy a soda.
The judge said his testimony was relevant and the defense could present it to the jury, but stressed it was for the jury to decide if Dowdle was telling the truth.
Dowdle, 42, testified he lived with McShane as a teenager for three years at which time McShane sexually molested him. He said he never told anyone about the sexual molestation.
http://www.nj.com/middlesex/index.ssf/2016/02/shell_for_lodzinski.html
He said he participated with McShane and another teenager in an armed robbery of a video store. He and McShane fled to Texas when they knew authorities were searching for them, but eventually separated and Dowdle returned and surrendered in early 1991. McShane returned in July 1991 and that's when the two were cellmates, Dowdle testified.
McShane spent several years in prison for the armed robbery of the video store and still lives in Arizona.
Middlesex County investigators interviewed friends of McShane, who said they corroborated his story -- that he wasn't in New Jersey when he was on the run -- according to the judge.
Sue Epstein may be reached at sepstein@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @susan_epstein. Find NJ.com on Facebook.