A judge wants to hear an Arizona man who has come forward and implicated someone else in the killing of 5-year-old Timothy Wiltsey in 1991.
NEW BRUNSWICK -- A judge has set Jan. 6 as the date he wants to hear from an Arizona man who has come forward and implicated someone else in the killing of 5-year-old Timothy Wiltsey in 1991.
Wiltsey's mother, Michelle Lodzinski, 47, is charged with her son's murder and is scheduled to go on trial Jan. 12, 2016. She was indicted and arrested in August 2014.
Lodzinski's attorney, Gerald Krovatin, filed a motion in last month, asking the judge to let Damien Dowdle, 42, of Arizona, tell a jury that Bernard Joseph McShane, 53, told him years ago that McShane lured a small boy away from his parents at an event, and was about to sexually assault him, but became afraid of detection and strangled him instead.
Krovatin said Dowdle contacted him in October 2015 about McShane, several months after Dowdle was released from prison. Dowdle said using the Internet, he did research and "was struck by the similarities" between McShane's confession to him in 1991 when the two shared a jail cell in Arizona and the story of Wiltsey's disappearance.
Krovatin argued Tuesday that "so long as the testimony is relevant," all the defense has to do is show that his testimony could raise "reasonable doubt" in a jury's mind in order for it to be admissible.
But Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Joie Piderit argued that McShane told Dowdle he abducted the boy in Atlanta, not in New Jersey.
Dowdle said in his statement to Krovatin and the defense that he immediately told his attorney and an investigator about McShane's confession back in 1991, but told them it was in Georgia and they came up with nothing. The connection to New Jersey wasn't made until another inmate at the jail told Dowdle that McShane meant Atlantic City, New Jersey, not Atlanta, Georgia.
Nieves said he needed to hear from Dowdle before making a decision on whether the man should be allowed to testify during the trial.
Lodzinski, formerly of South Amboy, originally told police that she and her son went to a carnival in Sayreville the night of May 25, 1991, and he disappeared when she went to a stand to buy a soda.
Over the next several weeks, she changed her statements several times, including one that her son was taken at knifepoint. Those statements will be heard by the jury, the judge has ruled.
Wiltsey's remains were found in a marshy area in Raritan Center in Edison 11 months after his disappearance.
Sue Epstein may be reached at sepstein@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @susan_epstein. Find NJ.com on Facebook.