ALLENTOWN — Star-crossed lovers Jamie Silvonek and Caleb Barnes were back together Friday, but their reunion in a Lehigh County courtroom did not end happily.
Following a trial that had the 15-year-old Upper Macungie girl and the 22-year-old soldier pointing the finger at each other for the slaying of Silvonek’s mother, a jury Friday evening found Barnes guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Cheryl Silvonek.
Barnes scowled as the verdict was read, then walked stiffly across the courtroom to face Lehigh County Judge Maria L. Dantos.
When the judge asked him if he had anything to say, his only reply was a curt “No.”
First-degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence. A sentencing hearing for the Army specialist who was stationed at Fort Meade in Maryland at the time of the slaying is set for Sept. 19.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Jeffrey Dimmig said he was pleased with the verdict and grateful that the jury looked closely at the evidence and followed their common sense.
“They delivered a verdict that was completely consistent with the facts and evidence in this case, and they did a great job,” Dimmig said.
Defense attorney Richard Webster refused to comment. Barnes’ parents, Greg and Carla Barnes, left the courtroom in tears and declined to answer questions.
David Silvonek, the victim’s husband, also declined to comment.
The verdict capped a four-day trial that featured mountains of forensic evidence and chilling testimony.
In a stunning legal maneuver, Webster called Jamie Silvonek to the stand, one day after prosecutors rested their case without calling her. Silvonek had agreed to testify against Barnes as part of the plea deal that earned her a 35-year-to-life sentence for taking part in her mother’s March 15, 2015, slaying.
Although they were both testifying for the defense, Barnes and Silvonek told wildly different stories of how Cheryl Silvonek was killed. Barnes shocked the courtroom by saying he helped Jamie Silvonek cover up the homicide because she had just told him she was pregnant.
Silvonek described Barnes’ reaching for her mother’s throat from the back seat of her sport utility vehicle as Cheryl Silvonek parked in the driveway of their Randi Lane home after driving them to a Breaking Benjamin concert in Scranton.
“He started to strangle her and then, eventually, he stabbed her,” Silvonek said.
Barnes told the jury that he wasn’t even in the car when Cheryl Silvonek, 54, was killed. After the concert, Barnes testified, he got into his own car, which was parked on the Silvoneks’ street. Needing some rest before his two-hour drive back to Fort Meade, Barnes said he took a nap.
“Jamie woke me up by banging on my window. She had blood on her hands and face,” Barnes said.
Jamie Silvonek dragged him back to the SUV, Barnes testified. He said he was horrified to see Cheryl Silvonek lying dead inside.
“My mom went crazy. She flipped out and attacked me and I couldn’t get her off,” Barnes recalled Jamie Silvonek saying.
Barnes told the jury that Jamie Silvonek said she’d killed her mother with one of his knives, which had slipped out of his pocket in the back seat. Jamie Silvonek told Barnes that the fight started when she told her mother that she was pregnant with Barnes’ child, he testified.
“At this point I’m thinking I have a family to protect,” he said, adding that his later confession to police was part of his continued effort to protect his unborn child. “This girl just killed her mom, but she’s having my baby. I can’t let her go to prison.”
When she was on the stand, Jamie Silvonek said nothing about being pregnant. Webster asked her to recount the numerous times she’d lied about the killing, and at one point asked Dantos to declare Jamie Silvonek a hostile witness.
The judge refused, noting that Jamie Silvonek was answering all of Webster’s questions.
Jamie Silvonek denied having anything “physical” to do with her mother’s homicide, but admitted urging Barnes to carry out the slaying so they could continue their relationship, which her mother did not approve of because of Barnes’ age.
“I believe what I did was just as bad or worse than the physical act,” Jamie Silvonek told Webster. “I realized that I had to do the right thing, that’s taking accountability for my actions, something your client has yet to do.”
Jamie Silvonek’s voice cracked with emotion as she talked about her mother. She wiped away tears several times and stared at her lap, her long blond hair covering half of her face.
Barnes glared at Jamie Silvonek while she testified. At one point, Dantos scolded Barnes.
“You will not have that kind of eye contact with this witness. Are we clear?” she said.
During his testimony, Barnes tried to explain away text messages that prosecutors say show he was plotting the killing.
He told the jury that the texts, which included phrases about not wanting to drive Cheryl Silvonek’s car because it would “leave us as suspects,” was just him sarcastically responding to his girlfriend’s ongoing “joke” about murdering her mother.
“I thought she was joking. I hoped she was joking. You don’t want to believe that someone you love is capable of that,” he said.
The jury of eight women and four men deliberated for four hours before finding Barnes guilty of first-degree murder, conspiracy, abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence. Dantos could sentence Barnes separately on all charges.
In his closing statement, Webster reminded the jury that Barnes’ DNA was not found on Cheryl Silvonek’s hands, despite the numerous defensive wounds a medical examiner found. He called Silvonek a “manipulator.”
Dimmig led the jury through the couple’s numerous text messages to each other in the week leading up to the killing. He argued that Barnes murdered his girlfriend’s mother because she had thrown him out of her house and threatened to report him to police for having sex with an underage girl.
In a demonstration that drew pained expressions from Cheryl Silvonek’s family, Dimmig recreated the slaying for the jury, showing how Barnes repeatedly punched, choked and stabbed Cheryl Silvonek as she tried to push the knife away.
“After he’s unable to kill her by choking her with the knife in his hand, he pushes it in and buries it. And buries it. And buries it.”
Dimmig reminded the jury that Barnes was found naked in Jamie Silvonek’s bed, one hour after they buried Cheryl Silvonek’s body in a shallow, muddy grave.
“They had sex after all of this,” Dimmig said.
Jamie Silvonek, who is serving her sentence at the state correctional facility in Muncy, Lycoming County, was not present in the courtroom when the verdict came down. Her attorney, John Waldron, praised the professionalism of Dimmig and Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Blackledge throughout the investigation and trial.
“My client is paying her penalty. She owned up, Barnes did not,” Waldron said. “Judge Dantos will make sure he pays for his dishonesty.”
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