BELLEFONTE — A Centre County jury on Monday delivered a guilty verdict for the man charged in the 2016 shooting death of a 60-year-old Pine Grove Mills woman.
After about three hours hours of deliberation following a trial that spanned five and a half days, the jury of eight women and four men found 35-year-old Christopher Kowalski guilty but mentally ill on the charge of first-degree murder for killing Jean Tuggy on on Jan. 20, 2016 at her Irion Street home.
The verdict means Kowalski will be sentenced to life in prison without parole, but will receive prescribed psychiatric treatment while there. Formal sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 1.
“We’re very thankful for the jury’s service,” Senior Deputy Attorney General Patrick Schulte said. “After six long years, thanks to the jury’s verdict, Jean Tuggy can finally rest in peace.”
While jurors accepted Kowalski’s case for mental illness, they rejected his defense of insanity, a narrowly defined legal term which sought to have him sent to a state hospital instead of prison.
Attorneys Thomas Egan and Christopher Mohney mounted a defense of not guilty by reason of insanity, arguing that Kowalski’s long history of mental illness made him unable to reason to the point that he did not know what he was doing or was unable to stop himself. They called a clinical psychologist and Kowalski’s counselor prior to his arrest, who testified that he was chronically depressed, hyper-focused on certain subjects and prone to paranoia and grandiose delusions that made him believe killing Tuggy was not wrong.
Prosecutors from the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office, however, contended that Kowalski, by his own admission, killed Tuggy “in cold blood,” and that his own words and actions show he fully knew what he was doing when he shot the school bus driver and church librarian.
Kowalski was “a coward,” Senior Deputy Attorney General Kelly Sekula said last week. He told investigators that he planned for weeks to kill Tuggy, picking her as his victim because she was “an easy target,” a friendly woman who twice battled cancer and faced several health problems that required her to use oxygen and a cane. Prosecutors called their own expert witness to rebut the defense testimony about Kowalski’s mental competence.
Kowalski did not appear to react when the verdict was read. He briefly waved to family members in the courtroom before being led out.
“The family is very upset for the Tuggy family and they’re also upset for their son,” Egan said. “During the course of the trial they learned a number of things about their son’s mindset about which they weren’t previously aware.”
Tuggy was killed by a 9mm gunshot wound to her face and also was shot once in the hip, a medical examiner found. Police said there were no signs of forced entry to her home.
After Tuggy’s body was discovered by two friends concerned about her well-being when she didn’t answer the phone, her death remained a mystery for years. Friends and family described Tuggy, who lived alone, as friendly and caring and could not imagine who would want to harm her.
Ferguson Township police and investigators from the attorney general’s office continued their pursuit of the killer and got a break in 2019 when witnesses recalled that Tuggy had mentioned a former co-worker at Wegman’s named “Chris,” with whom she had a friendship and who Tuggy said had developed a romantic interest in her.
Investigators ultimately identified “Chris” as Kowalski. A firearms check found that Kowalski purchased a 9 mm handgun a month before Tuggy’s death and sold it about eight months later to a gun shop, around the time he moved to South Carolina. The gun was tracked down to its current owners, a State College couple who were the only other owners, and sent for testing that found the test bullets and bullets recovered from Tuggy had “significant similarities,” and “matched… in all class characteristics.”
Ferguson Township Detective Caleb Clouse and attorney general’s office investigator Chris Weaver went to South Carolina to interview Kowalski on Feb. 8, 2021, first at the supermarket where he was working and then at a detention center. The hourslong interviews were played during the trial
Kowalski first said he was only generally aware of the Tuggy case, then claimed he knew Tuggy through her son. Confronted with evidence of their relationship, Kowalski said he did go to her home that day and that as he was taking off his coat a gun he had in the pocket fell to the floor and discharged, with the bullet striking Tuggy. He then said that he picked up the gun and it was jammed. When he attempted to clear it, he claimed, the gun discharged a second time and struck Tuggy again.
Told his story made no sense, Kowalski admitted that he intentionally shot her “in cold blood.”
“The truth is, I killed her,” he said. “I killed her because I was depressed, down and hopeless. I was having a mid-life crisis.”
Kowalski thought about killing Tuggy for months and told investigators “It was time to get the job done.”
Kowalski told police he long thought about being a “gunslinger,” and admitted to choosing Tuggy as his victim because of her vulnerability.
He went to Tuggy’s house with tea to use as “bait,” he told police, and cocked the gun slowly in the bathroom so Tuggy wouldn’t hear it before he shot her. He said that after the first shot, the gun jammed and after he cleared it he shot her again. His description of the shots, the ammo used, what Tuggy was wearing and her condition after being shot all matched the evidence.
Kowalski told police he collected the shell casings and disposed of them at a State College area restaurant later that night when he went out for pizza with his father. He locked the front door before leaving Tuggy’s house and exited through the back. Then he took a circuitous route home out of concern that he might pass responding police on the way if a neighbor had heard the shots and called the police.
He told investigators that he planned to take photos of Tuggy undressed but decided not to because he was afraid of getting blood on himself. Prosecutors argued that Kowalski was motivated was his fixation on photographing a woman naked.
Sekula said Kowalski’s actions demonstrated that he knew what he did was wrong, adding that he did not discuss the killing with family, friends or therapists.
“Jean died several years ago and her family has not had closure since,” Attorney General Josh Shapiro said in a statement. “Thanks to the diligent efforts of our lawyers, investigators, and fellow members of law enforcement who never gave up on this case, Christopher Kowalski is being held accountable for his actions. We hope today’s guilty verdict brings justice to the Tuggy family and helps them heal.”
Jurors twice sent questions to Judge Brian Marshall during deliberations on Monday, first asking for Kowalski’s psychiatric and medication records, then for clarification on the difference between guilty and guilty but mentally ill.
Egan said Kowalski will undergo a mental health evaluation prior to sentencing “so we can have him placed in the best facility for him.”
He was unsure whether Kowalski will appeal the verdict.
“We haven’t discussed that with the family yet, but appeals in cases like these are extremely difficult, and realistically speaking, even if we were successful on appeal… the goal would still be to have him institutionalized, just it’s a difference in what setting,” Egan said.
