William "Billy" McCaw's body was found behind a New Brunswick home in Feb. 2014 brutally beaten to death, authorities said. Timothy Puskas stands accused of murder in the death of McCaw, 22.
NEW BRUNSWICK -- Lawyers Tuesday afternoon presented two accounts of how authorities homed in on a man they say brutally beat to death a 22-year-old Kean University student in 2014.
Middlesex County Prosecutor Bina Desai, in her opening statements, told jurors the story of how a night of partying on Feb. 14, 2014, for William "Billy" McCaw, a "well-liked" college student, ended with him being left to die in the snow behind a New Brunswick house.
William "Billy" McCaw. (File photo) McCaw was walking to a friend's home alone from a frat party near the Rutgers' New Brunswick campus, where he attended college for a few years before transferring to Kean, when he encountered Timothy Puskas, Desai said. She said Puskas, whose life had been unraveling, beat McCaw to death with a weapon.
Puskas, 40, of New Brunswick, was charged with murder, weapons offenses and two counts of hindering.
"Billy did nothing to deserve that," Desai said of his death. "Billy was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
But Puskas' attorney, Joseph Mazraani, emphasized to jurors multiple times that there is no physical evidence that ties Puskas to McCaw's death.
"There's no motive for him to do any of this," Mazraani said in his opening statements. "He doesn't even know the young man."
At the time of McCaw's death, Puskas was living with a bunch of "thieves and criminals," Mazraani said, at a house on Plum Street, about 900 feet from where McCaw's body was found behind a home on Hartwell Street.
Puskas' roommates had been arrested for a string of burglaries in Middlesex and Union counties, Mazraani said, and also stole thousands of dollars from him. He said evidence suggests these roommates became aware that Puskas was onto them, and so when detectives came to the home, they turned on him.
"It's game on, it's let me save my skin time," Mazraani said of the roommates' motive to have Puskas arrested. "Let me take what I think I know and see how I can get out of my own mess. That's what a rat fink does. That's what a snitch does. There's no honor in that. They'll lie, they're thieves. And that's what they did here, which put that man in that chair."
Desai, the prosecutor, told jurors that Puskas' roommates stealing from him was a tipping point that led him to walk the streets of New Brunswick in rage.
In the years before McCaw's death, Puska's life started to "fall apart around him," she said. He lost his wife and his job, and also found out his mom was terminally ill.
"Things one by one started to unravel," Desai said.
So when he discovered his roommates had betrayed his trust, she said, "that made (Puskas) angry."
"He set out and when drunk, defenseless Billy came towards him, he knew he had his mark," Desai said.
Desai said detectives had interviewed Puskas during their investigation and determined he wasn't a suspect. However, he gave varying accounts of where he was around the time of McCaw's death that didn't make sense, Desai said. In the days following McCaw's death, she said, Puskas searched for news stories about him and stared "blankly and coldly" at flyers posted around town seeking information about McCaw's death.
"Those actions, ladies and gentlemen, speak louder than any words," she said.
But Mazraani told jurors those are the actions of a man who wanted to find out more information about a murder that occurred near his home. He also pointed to the fact that detectives never found a weapon and omitted information in reports when it wasn't favorable to their investigation.
For example, Mazraani said, a K-9 dog from the Somerset County Sheriff's Department sniffed out footprints leading to a home on Robinson Street. But that bit of information was glossed over and left out of reports, he said.
"Tim Puskas was innocent on Feb. 15, he was innocent when he walked into this courtroom and he's innocent as he sits there," Mazraani said, pointing to his client in the courtroom.
Puskas, who wore a blue and white checkered dress shirt under a gray sweater, sat expressionless as Mazraani addressed the jurors.
McCaw's family and friends filled two rows in the courtroom. They declined to speak with reporters after the proceeding.
The trial started after a lengthy jury selection, and the first witness is scheduled to appear on Wednesday.
In an unrelated case, Puskas was charged with fatally hitting a bicyclist on his way to North Brunswick on Jan. 25, 2012. He pleaded guilty to second-degree vehicular homicide in September 2015 and received a seven-year prison sentence.
McCaw grew up in Hillsborough before moving to Gallatin, Tenn., with his family in his junior year of high school. He spent three years at Rutgers before transferring to Kean in Union Township.
Graham Lewis, a friend of McCaw, told NJ Advance Media after McCaw's death that he was "the kindest and nicest person in the world."
"He would never hurt a soul and was always smiling," Lewis said. "He loved Rutgers more than he loved his own friends sometimes."
Alex Napoliello may be reached at anapoliello@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexnapoNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.