Boyfriend: Medford woman was drunk before she died
Rebecca Koster, of Medford, went missing on Dec. 4, 2009 after going out with friends. Koster's charred body was found in Connecticut.
The Medford woman whose mutilated body was found on fire by the side of a Connecticut road was drunk and unsteady on her feet hours before her death, her boyfriend testified Monday in state Supreme Court.
Daniel Mayor, 31, of Lake Grove, was the only witness called by murder defendant Evans Ganthier, 33, of Port Jefferson Station. Mayor's testimony could support a defense argument that Rebecca Koster, 24, died not from being stabbed in the abdomen by Ganthier, but by tripping and falling in his garage.
Attorneys are expected to make their closing arguments to the jury Tuesday after a month of testimony.
During questioning by defense attorney William Keahon of Hauppauge, Mayor said Koster drank red wine and Patron tequila after smoking marijuana that night. She also took the prescription narcotic Vicodin, he said.
"Was Rebecca pretty drunk?" Keahon asked.
"Yes, she was," Mayor said. "She was acting weird. She looked like she had something on her mind, like something was bothering her."
When Mayor dropped off Koster at her home at 3:30 a.m. on Dec. 4, 2009, he said she "was a little wobbly" and that he had to hold her as she walked to her door.
During questioning by Assistant District Attorney Janet Albertson, Mayor said Koster could unlock her door by herself and didn't fall down.
Prosecutors say Ganthier picked up Koster about an hour after she got home from the Holbrook bar where they met and stabbed her soon afterward.
Ganthier has always denied killing her. In signed statements taken by Suffolk police, he said she started gagging on the way to his house and then died shortly after she tripped over some dumbbells in his garage. In the statements, he said he panicked and took her body to Connecticut, where he cut off her fingers, toes, ears, nose and two tattoos before setting her on fire.
Despite the alcohol and drug use that Mayor and other witnesses have testified about, the toxicological report from Koster's autopsy found no substances in her blood.
The same autopsy found that Koster died from a stab wound to her liver. Keahon has suggested that the wound is more consistent with an impact caused by a fall.
