Closing arguments were heard on Friday in the trial over the fatal beating of a college student in New Brunswick in 2014.
NEW BRUNSWICK -- A jury will start deliberations early next week to decide the fate of a city man accused of slaying a college student found bludgeoned to death behind a city home in 2014.
Closing arguments were heard on Friday in the trial of Timothy Puskas, of New Brunswick, who is charged with murder in connection with the Feb. 14, 2014, brutal beating of 22-year-old William "Billy" McCaw. McCaw's body was found in the snow behind a home on Hartwell Street in New Brunswick.
In the courtroom at the Middlesex County Courthouse Friday morning, Puskas sat in a chair by himself shortly before the jury entered. Wearing a gray sweater and a blue button down, Puskas fidgeted in his chair and took a deep breath at one point just before the jury walked in.
With McCaw's family crowded in on one side of the room, Puskas' attorney, Joseph Mazraani, began an intense closing statement saying the state had no evidence connecting his client to the crime.
"There is not a hair, a fiber; there is not a drop of blood -- there is nothing connecting Tim to the crime scene or connecting him to this victim," Mazraani said. "There are no connections whatsoever."
He accused the New Brunswick Police Department of "contorting evidence to fit a target," saying that the lead detective -- feeling pressure to solve the case -- wrongfully pointed to Puskas, using statements from people facing criminal charges who falsely accused Puskas.
"A foundation built on rats cannot stand this storm," he told the jury. "Pressure from his bosses, from the Rutgers community, from the community itself, his own pressure, to providing some closure to the victim's family -- (it) makes him stick with this lead," he said, referring to the detective.
In the afternoon, lead assistant prosecutor, Bina Desai, while conceding the case relies on circumstantial evidence, told the jury that such evidence "can be just as strong or even stronger than direct evidence" and "circumstantial evidence alone is enough to convict somebody."
Central to the state's case is video surveillance footage the night of the incident, which the prosecution played for the jury Friday afternoon. The state says the various video footage shows McCaw walking to a friend's home alone from a frat party near the Rutgers University campus in New Brunswick. McCaw had attended the university a few years before transferring to Kean University.
The state alleges McCaw, while on his path, encountered Puskas, who ultimately beat and bludgeoned him to death with a weapon, which has never been recovered. McCaw's body was eventually discovered behind the Hartwell Street home.
"This case is about the defendant concealing and destroying evidence by getting rid of the weapon and providing false information to police so he couldn't be found," Desai said to the jury.
Even though the weapon was never recovered, Desai -- who showed autopsy photos of McCaw during her presentation -- alleged that the wounds sustained to his face were caused by a tool, specifically a crowbar, found in Puskas' home, along with several other tools.
The state has maintained throughout the case that Puskas -- who had been living at a house on Plum Street about 900 feet away from where McCaw's body was found -- snapped after discovering his roommates had stolen thousands of dollars from him, causing him to go on a rampage.
But, Mazraani has maintained that Puskas' roommates were a bunch of "thieves and criminals" who had been arrested in a string of burglaries and that when they sensed Puskas was on to them, they turned on him and provided false information to police, previous reports said.
Mazraani raised the possibility that the true culprit could have been one of Puskas' roommates, whom he said police failed to investigate. However, because the roommate died since the incident, the prosecution was unable to call him as a witness.
However, Desai asked the jury if it was logical that McCaw decided to go to a home on Hartwell Street and that "this random person or persons happened to find him and bludgeoned him to death without being seen."
"That is not possible, it doesn't make sense, it's not logical," she said.
Superior Court Judge Dennis Nieves, who is presiding over the trial, is expected to charge the jury on Monday.
Spencer Kent may be reached at skent@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerMKent. Find the Find NJ.com on Facebook.