Delaware County Daily Times - Jan 23, 2002 Article #1

Robert Rivera : Star witness for the prosecution by Gil Spencer

Delaware County Daily Times (Primos - Upper Darby, PA) - Wednesday, January 23, 2002

After almost three years in prison, accused murderer Robert Rivera was going to get it all off his chest. Taking the witness stand against his lawyer's strenuous advice, Rivera , accused of murdering his 20-month-old baby girl, swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

But very early in his testimony it became quite obvious that telling the truth concerning the whereabouts of Katelyn Rivera -Helton was not Mr. Rivera 's No. 1 goal. Apparently saving himself from a death sentence wasn't his main objective, either.

If avoiding the needle was his top priority, he'd have listened to his lawyer and kept his mouth shut. No, what Rivera wanted to do was get on that witness stand and trash his daughter's mother before the whole world. And that's what he did.

He wasn't a "monster," he said, but she was. A promiscuous, unfaithful, taunting shrew. "I admit I hit (Jennifer Helton)," he said, but basically she deserved it.

Katelyn was a different story: "I ain't never raised my hands to my daughter. I don't care what anybody says."

He started out with a cursory "I didn't kill my daughter" claim. But after that it was pure, uncorked sewage.

"Her mother was doing things you can't imagine," he said he told a judge during one protection-from-abuse hearing. "I didn't want Katelyn staying with her …"

To that end, he apparently arranged it so she didn't.

Sitting with his fingers locked together and speaking directly to the jury (his attorney declined to ask him any questions), Rivera painted a picture of Jennifer Helton that he apparently believed would justify in anyone's mind his need to get Katelyn away from her.

Of course, Jennifer wasn't the only despicable shrew he had to deal with. There was also her mother. After Jennifer got one of her well-deserved beatings at his hands and had to be rushed to the hospital, it was her mother who told him he'd never see Katelyn again. "Her mom blamed me," he said, despite his best efforts to set her straight about what kind of daughter she'd raised.

"This is the last time you're going to see her ( Katelyn )," Rivera quoted the woman as saying during an arranged visit. And when Katelyn tried to follow him, calling out "Daddy, Daddy," he said her grandmother grabbed her, "picked her up by one arm and tossed her in the van."

His testimony about the day he snatched Katelyn did nothing but bolster the prosecution's case. He admitted beating Katelyn 's mother again. He admitted pushing his way into the day-care provider's home and grabbing his daughter over the yelling and screaming of the staff.

He said he took her to McDonald's and the zoo, while making the occasional call to her mother -- though none long enough to be traced by the police. No, he was way too smart for that.

He tried to take Katelyn home but he didn't like the way her mother was acting, all suspicious and what not. And when he agreed to meet her in a parking lot and a man jumped out of her vehicle and started running after him, he took off. Wouldn't you?

"No, I did not give her ( Katelyn ) to strangers," he told the jury, though that is what he told police and others for months after he was in custody. Finally, he shrugged and said, "I don't know what else to say."

And at that, prosecutor John F.X. Reilly pounced. "I don't know what else to say?" he said, mocking Rivera . "Are you kidding me?"

"Where's Katelyn 's body?" Reilly demanded.

Rivera refused to answer. "Give me a lie-detector test," he said.

"We offered you a lie-detector test," Reilly said. Apparently, it wasn't the sort of lie-detector test Rivera felt comfortable taking.

After about 20 minutes, when Reilly didn't have any more questions, Rivera begged Judge Charles Keeler to let him continue testifying. But all he did when Keeler didn't stop him was ramble on about what a crummy mother Jennifer Helton had been. Finally Keeler put an end to it, interrupting Rivera in mid-sentence. "That's all," he said. And Rivera reluctantly left the stand.

Summed up, his defense was this: "Look, I'm not telling you what I did with my kid but her mother was a bad person. She was very mean to me so she deserved to have her daughter stolen from her, never to be returned. Believe me, I loved that little girl so I put her in a better place."

A better place.

Closing arguments are today. And then the jury will decide if Robert Rivera deserves to be put in a better place, too.

Gil Spencer's column appears Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at gspencer@delcotimes.com