NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — A New Jersey man has been acquitted in a new trial of murdering a Tennessee student 10 years ago.
Jurors in Middlesex County deliberated for five hours before acquitting Timothy Puskas of all charges Wednesday in the 2014 death of 22-year-old former Rutgers student William McCaw of Gallatin, Tennessee.
“I only wish my mother were alive so that I could be freed from this injustice,” Puskas said in a statement Thursday. He extended his “heart and prayers” to the McCaw family, but said: “Contrary to what you have been led to believe, I did not assault or kill your beloved son.”
McCaw was walking home from a party before his body was found in deep snow in a New Brunswick backyard in February 2014. Prosecutors said he was beaten to death with something like a crowbar or wrench. He attended Kean College, but previously attended Rutgers and frequently returned to the New Brunswick area.
Puskas was sentenced to 40 years in 2017, but a state appeals court overturned the conviction in 2021, saying there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime and surveillance videos did not show any interaction between him and the victim. The appeals court also said prosecutors should not have been allowed to use as evidence a recorded conversation between the suspect and someone who died before the trial.
Defense attorney Joseph Mazraani sought to question prosecution theories about the killing, saying other witnesses accused his client of getting lenient sentences for himself. He said Puskas “wants to get his life back on track as best he can” and called the case “a devastating example of what happens when associates and informants are not closely monitored, when prosecutors are not held accountable and when law enforcement officials fail to investigate. the right way.”
A Facebook post on a memorial site attributed to the victim’s father, Bob McCaw, said that under New Jersey law, jurors were not allowed to know certain things about the suspect and the case. He expressed gratitude to prosecutors for their efforts, saying “the fight is always worth it and love always wins.”