POUGHKEEPSIE – Tom Case, 54, a retired LAPD cop and owner of Bilmar Nursery/Christmas Tree Farm in Pleasant Valley, testified in his own defense in his murder trial earlier this week. Case is accused of killing his girlfriend’s son, Anthony Cuozzo, a 20-year-old autistic man, according to court testimony, during a domestic violence incident on Rawls Road on October 5, 2024.
Cuozzo allegedly stabbed Case in the chest with a pocketknife before leaving the premises and calling his grandmother for a ride to her house. Cuozzo was on the phone with a 911 operator when Case fired four shots toward Cuozzo’s back, striking him three times. Cuozzo was pronounced dead at Vassar Brothers Medical Center later that night.
. Case said that despite the loss of blood from his wound, he retrieved a Glock pistol from his car and slowly pursued the victim down the driveway, stopping approximately 17 yards away and shooting the victim in the back.
On Tuesday afternoon, Senior Assistant District Attorney Anthony DeFazio began his cross-examination of Case. The defendant admitted that the victim had worked for him at Bilmar Nursery and said Cuozzo was occasionally bullied by coworkers because he was “special”.
The cross-examination continued on Wednesday, with Case admitting that he did not see a weapon of any type in the victim’s hands when he began shooting. The 911 recording was played for the jurors again, beginning just before the first gunshot. “He just shot me,” Cuozzo is heard telling the 911 operator, and continued, “He just shot me. Help me!” The dispatcher asked if he had been shot. The victim explained that he had been shot in the chest, the leg, and the right side of his body.
Case can be heard on the recording, yelling at the victim, who was lying on the pavement of Rawls Road. “You tried to fuck!ng kill me,” which Case said he did not remember.
The defendant, when asked why he kept shooting even though he didn’t see a weapon, said: “Because I thought he was going to continue to kill.” The victim did not kill anyone, and the only person wounded was the defendant.
Both the defense and prosecution are scheduled to present their closing arguments today (Thursday) before Judge Karen Edelman-Reyes in Dutchess County Court.
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