Closing: Prosecutor calls Erika Sifrit ‘Little Miss Scrapbook’

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Erika Sifrit kept personal items from two Virginia tourists, whose dismembered bodies were later found in a Delaware landfill, as souvenirs of their killings, a prosecutor said yesterday in closing arguments at the Pennsylvania woman’s double murder trial.

Referring to her frequently as “Little Miss Scrapbook,” Worcester County State’s Attorney Joel J. Todd said the items found on Erika Sifrit when she was arrested — two spent bullets, the driver’s licenses of the victims, a room key, and a ring — were kept so she could remember the crime.

“She’s got to have a trophy, she’s got to have a souvenir,” Todd told the jurors. “What better souvenir could you have than the ring off the victim’s hand.”

Prosecutors say Joshua Ford, 32, and Martha Crutchley, 51, both of Fairfax City, Va., were killed and cut up in the Sifrits’ condominium after meeting Erika Sifrit, 25, and her husband, Benjamin, 25, during a night of bar-hopping in Ocean City over the Memorial Day weekend last year.

Todd admitted prosecutors don’t know who pulled the trigger, but told jurors the Sifrits worked as a team to commit both murders, with Erika luring the couple up to the condominium so the Sifrits could play a deadly game.

“Erika and BJ Sifrit were working as a team, they worked as a team all week long,” Todd said.

Noting that three bullets were taken from Ford, and a fourth was found in a wall of the bathroom of the condominium, Todd told jurors he believed Erika Sifrit fired one of the shots that hit Ford and also fired the errant bullet. Crutchley was unhurt, and later finished off with a knife, Todd theorized during his closing arguments.

In his closing statements, defense attorney Arcangelo M. Tuminelli said Benjamin Sifrit was the killer, calling Erika a “fragile, psychologically weak young woman” who aided her husband only because she craved his affection.

He said prosecutors tried to pin the crime on Benjamin Sifrit in his trial, and then turned around to use the same evidence to claim Erika Sifrit was the killer.

“The state blames Erika Sifrit every bit as much as Benjamin Sifrit, even though they know Benjamin Sifrit was the killer,” Tuminelli said.

The trial was moved to Frederick County because of extensive pretrial publicity in the Ocean City area.

During four days of testimony last week, prosecutors showed Erika Sifrit had the handgun that killed one of the pair in her possession when she was arrested five days later. But no evidence was presented that the .357 Magnum revolver was in her possession the night of the killings, or that she had ever fired any gun.

Todd also gambled on a legal maneuver when he dropped a charge that Mrs. Sifrit, of Duncansville, Pa., was an accessory after the fact. Without the option of finding that she helped cover up the crimes, the jury now faces an all-or-nothing decision on the murder counts. Mrs. Sifrit did not testify.

Before closing arguments were given, prosecutors dropped more charges, two burglary-related charges that stemmed from lock picks police found when Mrs. Sifrit was arrested. The Sifrits were arrested by officers responding to a burglary report at a Hooters restaurant in Ocean City.

The defense, meanwhile, had promised during opening statements to show that Benjamin Sifrit killed the couple. But the “confession” they offered was hearsay channeled through a combative witness, Melissa Seling, who spent most of her 2 1/4 hours on the stand backpedaling.

Even as a cooperative state’s witness at Benjamin Sifrit’s trial earlier this spring, Seling’s testimony wasn’t strong enough to convict Sifrit of killing Ford. The jury acquitted him of all charges in Ford’s death and found him guilty of second-degree murder in Crutchley’s death.

Benjamin Sifrit claimed at his trial that he was asleep outside the condominium complex when the two were killed. His lawyer called Mrs. Sifrit “Crazy Erika,” and portrayed her as a pill-popping, snake-loving, sexually promiscuous loose cannon.