Bernard Joseph McShane told a jury he has never been in New Jersey and has never killed anyone.
NEW BRUNSWICK -- For months, the defense attorney for Michelle Lodzinski has referred to an alternative suspect in the death of Lodzinski's 5-year-old son, who went missing from a carnival in Sayreville 25 years ago.
This suspect was expected to cast doubt on whether Lodzinski killed her son Timothy Wiltsey in May 1991.
Wednesday morning that witness took the stand and denied having anything to do with the child.
Bernard Joseph McShane, a 53-year-old Arizona man, told a jury that his trip to New Brunswick to testify in Lodzinski's trial is the first time in his life he has ever been in New Jersey.
"I heard in November that he (Damien Dowdle) said I killed someone in New Jersey," McShane said. "I did not kill anyone."
When asked by Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Scott La Mountain if he killed Timothy, McShane said, "no sir."
McShane was testifying as a rebuttal witness to the testimony of Damien Dowdle, also of Arizona, who shared a jail cell and a relationship with McShane more than 25 years ago.
Dowdle testified last week that McShane told him while the two shared a jail cell that he killed a 5-year-old boy in Atlanta City sometime in 1991.
Dowdle said he originally believed it was in Georgia, but later another inmate told him it was probably Atlantic City in New Jersey.
Both Dowdle and McShane testified they were fugitives from police, wanted for committing a video store robbery in late November 1990. The two took off in early January 1991 and split up several weeks later, McShane testified.
He said he went to Atlanta, Georgia and stayed with an old U.S. Army friend, while Dowdle returned to Arizona where he surrendered to authorities.
McShane said he eventually returned to Arizona in July 1991 and surrendered.
He said the last time he spoke to Dowdle was in a recreation yard at the Arizona jail in 1991 when he learned Dowdle agreed to testify against him for the video store robbery. McShane said by that time Dowdle had asked to be transferred to another jail cell.
Under cross examination by Lodzinski's lawyer, Gerald Krovatin, McShane said he served 12 years in prison for armed robbery and kidnapping in connection with the video store robbery. McShane said he was released from prison in 2000. He lives and works in Arizona.
He again denied that he ever told Dowdle a story about traveling to New Jersey and trying to molest a boy at some park and killing him when he started crying and screaming.
In the afternoon, Thomas Van Meter, the retired Scottsdale, Arizona police detective who investigated the video store robbery took the witness stand. Van Meter is also the detective who Dowdle first told in Sewptember 1991 that McShane may have killed a boy.
Van Meter testified that on Sept. 5, 1991,Dowdle's attorney in Arizona told him that McShane told Dowdle he may have killed a 5 or 6 year old boy in Georgia six or eight months earlier in a park.
The retired detective said he asked for a meeting with Dowdle because "I needed more information" and he met with Dowdle on Sept. 16, 1991.
"He told me the homicide would have been between February and April 1991 in a park in Georgia," Van Meter said. He said Dowdle did not give him any town.
He said he gave the FBI in Georgia what information he had and put out a teletype to towns in Georgia, but no one came back cases matching that information.
Lodzinski told police her son went missing the evening of May 25, 1991 from a carnival in Kennedy Park in Sayreville when she turned around to pay for soda at a concession stand.
She became a prime suspect in his disappearance when she changed her version of events several times over the next few weeks, according to testimony at her trial.
Lodzinski was charged with her son's murder in August 2014 after the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office reopened the case in 2011.
She has always maintained she had nothing to do with either his death or his disappearance.
The jury will return on Tuesday and both sides are expected to complete their cases next week.
Sue Epstein may be reached at sepstein@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @susan_epstein. Find NJ.com on Facebook.