CLEARFIELD – A lengthy police interview was played Tuesday in the trial of a DuBois man who allegedly murdered his wife’s lover.
Prosecutors say Glen Chester Johnston, 61, shot Jude Srock, 46, also of DuBois, in a parking lot near 26 S. Franklin St., on March 17, 2022.
Johnston is charged with criminal homicide, two counts each of aggravated assault and simple assault, plus reckless endangerment.
District Attorney Ryan Sayers and First Assistant District Attorney Leanne Nedza are presenting the case for the commonwealth.
Johnston is being represented by defense attorneys William A. Shaw Jr. and Stacy Parks Miller.
Assistant DuBois Police Chief Dustin Roy testified that after Johnston was taken into custody, he was interviewed at the police station.
The shooting occurred around 4 p.m. on the date in question, and the interview was conducted just over an hour later.
Johnston detailed marital problems he was having following the discovery of his wife’s affair around Thanksgiving of 2021.
He said they’d been trying to work things out but then he found her with Srock during the early-morning hours of March 16, 2022.
The next day, he spoke to his wife who said she would tell Srock “it was over” between them. But Johnston advised he would handle that.
Johnston told Roy that’s when he drove to the lot, took the gun from his locked glove box, loaded it and waited for Srock.
At some point, he said Srock came outside and he got out. He put the loaded weapon in his right pants pocket for “protection.”
He then began walking towards Srock and asking if they could have a talk about his ongoing affair with his wife.
As he pulled the gun from his pocket, Johnston said he wasn’t sure what happened, but that it accidentally fired into the ground.
He told Roy that Srock was calling him names and insulting him so he raised the gun and fired, shooting Srock in the head.
Srock fell to the ground and Johnston left.
That’s not me, that’s not who I am, Johnston said in the interview, adding he didn’t go there with intentions of shooting Srock.
I didn’t plan it at all … I would never kill anybody, he said.
Under cross-examination, Roy did admit that Johnston repeatedly apologized, saying he never meant for this to happen.
He also said Johnston told him the gun he used had been secured in his glove box, and wasn’t just put there the day of the incident.
Shaw pointed out that Johnston was left-handed, and that if he really intended to kill Srock, he wouldn’t have aimed and fired with his right hand.
County Coroner Kim Shaffer Snyder testified that Srock was declared deceased by medical command at 4:30 p.m. March 17, 2022.
Forensic Pathologist Dr. Harry Kamerow conducted an autopsy the next day on Srock at Mount Nittany Medical Center, State College.
Kamerow said Srock was shot in his left cheek, and estimates the gun was 12 – 18 inches away at the time it was fired.
Srock would have succumbed very quickly to the gunshot to his head, testified Kamerow, because the bullet transected his brain stem.
Kamerow ruled Srock’s manner of death a homicide.
The trial resumes at 9 a.m. Wednesday before President Judge Fredric J. Ammerman in Courtroom No. 1, and is scheduled through Friday.
