On October 18, Fairley was brought to a common pleas courtroom in Norristown for a preliminary hearing. Jimmy Manderach was already there. The Philadelphia Daily News reported that this was Manderach’s first opportunity to see the man who had killed Lisa and Devon. Fairley, who’d received death threats, was under heavy guard. The hearing in front of District Justice Benjamin Crahalla lasted more than two hours. Five police officers presented the evidence, including Peffall’s account of Fairley’s phone call to Castor. Hair and fiber test results were described, along with Henry Lee’s report about the DNA analysis. Castor stated that there was a 99.994 percent chance that the Fairley was the source of the skin under Lisa’s fingernails. He added that more DNA test results were pending.
The evidence was convincing; Fairley was ordered to stand trial. Castor was relieved: “If a preliminary hearing goes badly for the government, the bad guy goes free.”
Reporters recorded Egan’s mention of a possible insanity defense, because Fairley had a documented history of psychiatric problems. He offered nothing definitive.
Just over a month later, on November 22, Fairley arrived in court to hear the formal charges and enter his plea. Egan had planned a substantial fight to have all the evidence tossed. On Fairley’s behalf, Egan pled not guilty to aggravated assault, abuse of corpse, theft, and two counts of first-degree murder. It was over in 10 minutes, but Egan told reporters from several local papers that he would seek to have the trace and DNA evidence suppressed.
“At that point in time,” Egan explained, “the method for DNA was the PCR, which was relatively new, and they were replicating partial strands of DNA. I figured I might as well challenge that because it was among the most damaging pieces of evidence.”
In addition, a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer quoted him stating an early strategy: if the prosecutor did not have sufficient evidence to hold Fairley on September 11 when he was questioned, then they didn’t have sufficient evidence to search him. “Those two things are incongruous,” Egan said. He also planned to request a change of venue, due to the amount of publicity the notorious deal had engendered, and he hoped to suppress all statements that Fairley had made, including his September 20 phone call.
By this time, the collection of evidence included Lisa’s DNA on a spot on the back of the shirt Fairley had worn that Sunday, Devon’s DNA on a rug in the store, Fairley’s DNA under Lisa’s fingernails, and Lisa’s hair from the store’s vacuum cleaner. There were also fiber transfer samples that placed Fairley with the victims, and the victims in the store and in his car. Castor felt confident.
“The case against Fairley was perhaps the strongest prosecution case I’d ever seen,” he said. “Any case can be lost, but that case was about as good as you could possibly make it. The way you win that sort of high-level homicide case is in the investigation. You win by collecting the evidence and closing off defenses.”
The trial was set for March. At the end of January, Egan announced that he would not be mounting an insanity defense. He had found Fairley to be easy to get along with, and “intelligent to the extent that he understood the evidence and I could have clear, rational discussions with him about the strengths and weaknesses of certain evidence. He could grasp the concepts and assist in his defense.” None of the four mental health professionals who’d assessed Fairley had found him to be of unsound mind, such that at the time of the murders, he did not appreciate that what he was doing was wrong.
“There was nothing [they found] that would have been admissible in a trial,” Egan clarified. “It would have been admissible in a sentencing proceeding, but he was already getting life.”
Castor was annoyed to learn that Egan had persuaded the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to order an out-of-county jury, which would be time-consuming and expensive. But at least the jurors would be bussed to Montgomery County.
Around this time, Ruth Fairley made a public statement for the Philadelphia Inquirer that her son “must have snapped,” but she was creating her own controversy. Although she had closed her Collegeville store right after the double homicide, she had opened a new one in a town just five miles from there.
On February 26, everyone came together in a Norristown courtroom before Judge Carpenter for a pre-trial hearing. Jimmy Manderach attended as well, having recently filed a wrongful death suit against Fairley’s parents. He claimed that they knew of their son’s assaultive behavior, yet had allowed him to be unsupervised in a store frequented by women and children.
Reporters wrote that Fairley seemed pleased that day, as if he fully expected to be released. On his behalf, Egan asked for suppression of the September 20 phone call, Fairley’s statements to police on September 11, and everything the search warrants had turned up in his residence and car, and inside the store. Egan claimed that the police had held Fairley illegally and had not had sufficient cause for making the searches. In the event that the September 20 phone call was to be admitted, he added, ADA Castor should be taken off the case, because he would then be a witness.
“I take my job seriously,” said Egan. “I figure that as long as I fight as hard as I can within the rules, then I’m doing what I’m supposed to do.”
Judge Carpenter denied the motion to throw out the physical evidence. He also allowed the statements Fairley had made. He declared the searches legal, because the police had provided sufficient information for probable cause. In addition, he would allow Fairley’s phone call, if Castor decided to use it, because Fairley had not been forced or tricked into it; he’d made the call of his own free will. However, the DA’s office might have to decide between using it or allowing Castor to prosecute the case.
As he listened to all of this, Fairley’s self-satisfied smile vanished. He now faced a trial with a considerable amount of evidence against him, including his own admissions.
The trial was delayed until April, but by March 14, Castor had decided against using Fairley’s phone call. Their case was solid. They didn’t need it.