Without comment, the State Supreme Court has denied an appeal by Ronald Weiss, meaning his retrial for the 1978 murder of teenager Barbara Bruzda of Tunnelton can move forward.
Weiss was convicted of killing Bruzda after the two had been playing pool at her father’s bar. Her body was found in March of 1979, five months after her death. Weiss was found guilty in 1997 after a state law had changed and allowed spouses to testify against each other. His then-common law wife testified against him, as did two prison inmates who said Weiss admitted killing Bruzda.
But in 2018, federal judge Mark Hornack struck down the conviction based on a ruling that a deputy attorney general and a state trooper had lied about promising special treatment to the two prison inmates in exchange for their testimony. Weiss was released but immediately arrested and the charges re-filed, with Indiana County President Judge Thomas Bianco subsequently ruling that the murder and the prosecutorial misconduct were separate issues.
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