An expressionless Concetta Morton with a swollen lip alternately faced the cell phone camera and looked away, a black plastic garbage bag around her shoulders, a small piece of skin seemingly missing from the side of her neck.
It was among the last images taken of Morton, whose decomposing body was discovered six days later on Sept. 15, 2023, under a tarp in her girlfriend Kenya Tilford’s New Rochelle apartment.
The video as well as two others showing Tilford berating and cursing the 27-year-old developmentally disabled Morton that summer were played last week for jurors at Tilford’s murder trial.
The images were among thousands extracted from Tilford’s cell phone and the prosecution is seeking to show a pattern of physical and psychological torture leading up to when Tilford allegedly suffocated Morton before unsuccessful efforts to get two relatives and a friend to help her dispose of the body.
One of the relatives saw the body, drove Tilford to an Elmsford motel and then reported the body to police.
The allegations of torture are the basis for the top charge, first-degree murder, which could land Tilford in prison for life with no possibility of parole.
Morton had moved in with Tilford in May 2023 and her family contends they never saw her in person again as they could not break Tilford’s control over Morton.
Two witnesses, retired New Rochelle Detective Steven Geertgens and Peter Martin, a senior criminal investigator in the Westchester District Attorney’s Office, spent the better part of three days on the witness stand as Assistant DA Courtney Johnson led them through the collection of evidence.
Geertgens detailed the crime scene investigation and the multiple items recovered from Tilford’s apartment at 155 Franklin Avenue. Among the evidence were items Tilford bought at Home Depot three days after the video of Morton was taken – an open box containing a Ryobi chainsaw, a hooded coverall, a blue tarp, duct tape, masks and gloves.
Martin detailed for jurors the extraction of the images from Tilford’s phone. One video from June 11, 2023, showed Tilford demanding that Morton leave her apartment. Her narration includes curses and threats and she insists she has every right to put her hands on Morton because she’d told her to leave.
“I’m gonna knock you the (expletive) out,” Tilford tells Morton. “You’ll be in a coma. Get the (expletive) out of my house.”
In another video four days later, as a meek, half-dressed Morton sits on a bed, Tilford assails her lack of hygiene and how she handles her menstrual cycle.
Beyond attacking the allegations of torture, the defense will challenge the findings that Morton was asphyxiated and the victim of a homicide.
Defense lawyer Anthony Mattesi spent just a few minutes on cross examination of the two investigators.
He questioned Geertgens about the possibility of cross-contamination when the bin, the tarp and a black plastic bag were all packaged together when collected. Raising the possibility that the defense could suggest the relative was involved in the killing, Mattesi asked about the evidence being mostly collected from where Tilford sat in his car and not the area around the driver’s seat.
With Martin, Mattesi asked only about that last video and a photograph of the same scene. While Martin said it looked to him like Morton was in distress, he acknowledged that she was alive and breathing in the images. Mattesi asked him if the positioning of the plastic bag could cause asphyxiation.
“In the current state of it I would say no,” Martin said.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: New Rochelle murder jurors see victim images in months before death
Reporting by Jonathan Bandler, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
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