Mar 14, 2019 5 min read

A Washington man on trial for a double shooting that left one person dead six years ago claimed in an apparent confession to police hours later that he had an accomplice who may have also fired a gun during the botched robbery.

“In my mind is – I’m not saying Ray shot him or didn’t shoot him – but in my mind is, Ray shot him,” Brandon Wolowski said in a recorded statement he made at the station early on the morning of Jan. 9, 2013. He did so hours after police said Matthew Mathias, 37, and his girlfriend, Michelle Powell, 45, were allegedly shot by Wolowski, who was trying to steal Mathias’ extensive gun collection at the couple’s house in the city’s West End.

Wolowski, now 24, faces a criminal homicide charge, plus other charges stemming from the shooting of Powell and the robbery. He could face the death penalty if he’s convicted of killing Mathias.

Police appear to have discounted Wolowski’s references to the accomplice – one named Ray or otherwise. No one else was ever charged with having participated in the robbery-shooting.

But Noah Geary, Wolowski’s court-appointed lead attorney, spent much of a lengthy cross-examination on questioning city Detective Daniel Stanek on how thoroughly police checked out the statement they got from Wolowski, who was 18 at the time, before filing charges against him just eight hours after the shooting.

The 32-minute recording of the interview between Wolowski and Stanek, the lead investigator in the case, was played for Washington County jurors Wednesday, the third day of Wolowski’s trial before Common Pleas Judge John F. DiSalle.

Prosecutors played the recording after calling Stanek to the witness stand, where he spent most of the day. The government concluded its case that afternoon. The defense is expected to call its witnesses when the trial resumes this morning.

In the interview, Wolowski said he’d gone armed to Mathias and Powell’s house with someone named “Ray” to steal the guns because he was facing eviction if he didn’t come up with about $1,200 in rent, but “didn’t want anything to happen to Matt and Shelly.”

In the recording, Wolowski said he heard someone else fire a gun, but didn’t say for sure who did. He admitted to then firing his own gun at Mathias and Powell before running out the back of the house and joining “Ray,” who was already waiting in a vehicle outside.

Powell testified Monday Wolowski had come over with crack cocaine for the couple before pointing a gun at her and demanding Mathias’ firearms, which were locked in a safe.

The government focused on how Wolowski incriminated himself during his interview with the detective.

“Did he tell you that he shot Matthew Mathias?” Deputy District Attorney Leslie Ridge asked Stanek.

“Yes,” Stanek replied.

She asked the same question with Powell as the victim, eliciting another “yes” from her witness, and got another affirmative answer when she asked if Wolowski had been on a “mission to get rent money.”

Trial evidence shows Wolowski signed a waiver of his Miranda rights at about 12:40 a.m., after he’d already been in the custody of investigators for several hours. Stanek said he spoke with Wolowski for about 40 minutes before taking the recorded statement, which started about 1:20 a.m.

Wolowski said the pair encountered an “Ashley” at one point that night. Geary noted Stanek didn’t ask for more details about this person. Police also didn’t check phone records to verify Wolowski had called his younger brother following the shooting, as he’d claimed.

Police were empty-handed when they followed up on other parts of the statement.

Wolowski said he’d thrown the “snubnose” he’d used in the robbery out a car window as he and “Ray” left the scene of the shooting. Investigators never found a gun when they searched in the section of Addison where Wolowski said he’d discarded it.

According to previous testimony, Mathias was found dead outside. Powell fled to a house across the street where a 911 call was made at about 7:30 p.m.

Powell described the shooter as a “white male with dark hair.” Questioned by Ridge, Stanek agreed neither of two other young men police encountered early in their investigation matched that description.

The two others Ridge named were Jatrevton Bledsoe, at whose Addison Street apartment Wolowski was found by police, and Terrance Cohen Jr., whose father’s house was next to the building where Bledsoe lived. Cohen told police Wolowski arrived with a gun and asked him to hold onto it.

Police later found that revolver in the basement. Ballistics testing matched that gun to a bullet removed from Powell.

Geary noted that type of .38-caliber revolver isn’t commonly called a “snubnose.”

During another line of questioning, Stanek said he took “Ray” to be “Jay,” or Bledsoe, based on details like Wolowski saying he’d been at “Ray’s” place when police knocked on the door there. Bledsoe previously testified he’d been at home when Wolowski arrived and asked for a change of clothes.

Stanek said another detective had gone to a Denny’s restaurant to check Bledsoe had been there that evening, as he’d claimed, and rule him out as a suspect. A receipt showed he had been there.

Still, Geary said the timing of the receipt only put Bledsoe at the restaurant “over an hour” before the shooting.

Geary also focused on physical evidence he said police could have analyzed but didn’t. For example, Stanek conceded Wolowski said he’d been in a vehicle, but Bledsoe’s car was never searched for blood or other evidence.

Finally, the defense attorney said Stanek never said in his report that he’d gotten a definitive clarification of who “Ray” was.

“Everything that he was saying was enough for me to understand that he meant ‘Jay,'” Stanek replied.