Overstreet found guilty of stabbing his wife

Heath Wayne Overstreet's attorneys finished his courtroom defenseWednesday with an admission that their task had been difficult.

"There is incriminating evidence against our client," saidattorney Greg Phillips of Salem. "Our client lied and did somethings improperly. That does not mean he is a murderer."

But Roanoke Circuit Court Judge Jonathan Apgar, who heardOverstreet's case without a jury, disagreed. The judge foundOverstreet, 44, guilty of first-degree murder in the 2009 stabbingof his wife, Susan Cassell Overstreet, 45.

Overstreet's sentencing is set for April 11. He faces life inprison.

Apgar's decision capped two days of trial in which the couple's involvement in an Internet swingers group and Susan Overstreet'sdate on the last night of her life with a martial arts expert wereinvoked repeatedly.

The judge said he was convinced by DNA evidence that found Susan Overstreet's blood beneath an inside door handle in her estrangedhusband's pickup truck, and Heath Overstreet's pattern of makingscores of calls to his wife in the days leading up to her death.

After using cellphones to call his wife 26 times July 20, 2009,16 times July 21 and 15 times July 22, there was not a single callJuly 23, the day Susan Overstreet's body was found. When policecontacted Heath Overstreet late that day, he claimed not to knowhis wife was dead.

Susan Overstreet was killed in the Roanoke apartment she movedinto after leaving the Bedford County home she shared with herhusband. The Overstreets' decade of marriage had collapsed. In themonth before she was slain, Susan Overstreet showed an attorneyphotos of bruises she said her husband inflicted, filed an assaultwarrant against him, obtained restraining orders and filed fordivorce.

Heath Overstreet violated the restraining orders multiple times,sitting in his truck for hours outside his wife's new apartment andonce meeting her outside Valley Bank's Church Avenue branch, whereshe worked as a teller.

Susan Overstreet's co-workers were so worried about her that whenthey saw Heath Overstreet drive after her from the bank parkinglot, they called her on her cellphone and she circled back to thelot so a male colleague could meet her. Heath Overstreet fled whenthe co-worker said he called the police.

Joyce Whalen of Bedford, a friend of the Overstreets, testifiedthat Heath Overstreet had left her a voice mail after his wifemoved out, saying that if he couldn't have her, no one would.

Whalen said both Overstreets were involved in a swingerslifestyle of having sex partners outside their marriage.

After leaving her husband, Susan Overstreet arranged a date withmartial arts instructor Michael Luckado through an online swingersgroup, Luckado testified.

Luckado said he and Susan Overstreet had dinner July 22, thenwent back to his house in Salem for sex. Overstreet left about11:30 p.m., he said.

Betty Overstreet, Heath Overstreet's mother, testified that shesaw his truck at his house, just up the hill from his parents'home, before 11:30 p.m. that night. It was still there when shewent to bed about 1 a.m., she said.

Defense lawyers argued this meant Heath Overstreet couldn't havebeen at his wife's Roanoke apartment, a 40-minute drive away, whenhis wife was killed.

But Roanoke Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Joshua Dietz notedthat cellphone records showed Heath Overstreet had a long telephonecall to his wife that did not end until about 11:20 p.m. Thecellphone tower that carried the call was in Roanoke, showing thatHeath Overstreet was in his wife's neighborhood, not in BedfordCounty, when the call was made, Dietz said.

Dietz said it was most likely that Susan Overstreet leftLuckado's home closer to 11 p.m. than 11:30 p.m., and that herhusband, who neighbors had seen sitting outside her apartment inthe late afternoon, called her as she drove home.

Police found Susan Overstreet's body the next day after bankemployees called to say she had not come to work. She was foundlying facedown in her own blood in an otherwise immaculate house,several investigators testified. She had been stabbed numeroustimes and had suffered several wounds that would have killed her,testified Dr. Paul Benson, the medical examiner. She likely died inminutes, he said.

Her blood was dripped in her apartment's foyer, and a streak ofit was on the outside of the front door.

It was also inside Heath Overstreet's pickup truck. Defenseattorneys said the blood was left there in mid-June, when theOverstreets were still getting along, and she cut her hand whilewashing the truck.

The defense attorneys also pointed at Luckado as a suspect,saying he was the last person who admitted seeing Susan Overstreetalive. Others in swinger circles might also have a grudge againsther, the lawyers said.

Luckado, who had known Susan Overstreet only hours, had no motiveto harm her, said the prosecutor. He was fully cooperative afterinvestigators contacted him about two weeks after the killing,Dietz said.

After the trial, Dietz called the details about swingers adistraction from the most important point about the case.

Whatever her choices, Susan Overstreet didn't deserve to bemurdered, he said.