Oechsle

HOLLIDAYSBURG — One of the two victims in a 2023 prison stabbing detailed the events leading up to the attack during the first day of the accused perpetrator’s jury trial on Wednesday.

John Javit was called to the stand by Blair County First Assistant District Attorney Nichole Smith and said he was “really lucky” that his injuries, allegedly caused by defendant Raymond Thomas Oechsle Jr., weren’t more severe.

“He just missed my eye,” Javit said. “I have a few puncture wounds. I was really lucky.”

Oechsle, 54, is facing a felony count of attempted criminal homicide, four felony counts of aggravated assault, two felony counts of assault by a prisoner on another and related charges in relation to the October 2023 incident.

Oechsle was not in the courtroom to hear Javit’s testimony, as he refused to cooperate with prison officials trying to transport him to the courthouse. Prior to the start of the trial, presiding President Judge Wade A. Kagarise spoke to Oechsle through Deputy Warden Sean Edmundson’s speakerphone.

In the call, Oechsle claimed “no one ever asked” what he wanted and demanded to represent himself in a trial by judge. When Kagarise attempted to question Oechsle further, Oechsle returned to his bunk and laid face down, refusing to talk, according to Edmundson.

Defense attorney Robert Donaldson told Kagarise he had attempted to speak with Oechsle in person at least three times since his jury selection, but Oechsle had turned him away. Donaldson also clarified that he was never made aware of Oechsle’s desire to represent himself.

Kagarise allowed the trial to begin in Oechsle’s absence, but ordered Warden Matt Hale to check with Oechsle throughout the day in case he changed his mind.

Before Smith called Javit to the stand, she informed the court that the case’s second victim, Larry Lykens, had died in November. Lykens last testified during Oechsle’s preliminary hearing in November 2023.

When asked by Smith to tell the jury what he remembered of the alleged attack, Javit said he was sitting in a wheelchair by a picnic table in the cellblock’s dayroom watching the news. Oechsle came down from his own cell and began talking to him, Javit said.

“He came about and just started saying ‘you know, that man (Lykens) in the cell there raped his grandchildren,'” Javit said.

Neither Lykens nor Javit were being held at the prison on charges of child abuse and do not have prior records of committing those crimes.

Oechsle got up to walk around, Javit said, before coming around and stabbing him in the face with a pen.

Smith asked Javit how he was able to get Oechsle to stop attacking him, and Javit said he slid out of his wheelchair and onto the floor, then grabbed Oechsle’s arm. That’s when Oechsle “ran into that cell with the other guy,” Javit said. He was able to see Oechsle stabbing Lykens with a toothbrush and managed to press a button that called for officers.

“I heard the poor guy screaming to help him,” Javit said.

When Smith asked Javit if he had any prior issues with Oechsle, Javit said he “never even had two words with him.”

“He wasn’t threatening me or nothing, he was just there,” Javit said.

In stipulations agreed upon by the defense and prosecution, District Attorney Pete Weeks told the jury that doctors had classified Lykens as the highest-

level trauma patient at level one. Lykens was found to be blind in his right eye and suffered blurry and double vision in his right eye due to the attack. He also suffered orbital bone fractures that require “a significant amount of force to accomplish,” Weeks said.

One of the jurors was dismissed after expressing uneasiness with being shown some of the graphic images from the attack. They were replaced with an alternate juror.

A former corrections officer was also called to testify and said he was doing trash collection with another CO when they were called to the cellblock for an assault.

Smith asked the officer what he saw when he entered the cellblock, to which he said, “I can see Oechsle stabbing Lykens in the face.” The officer added that Oechsle only stopped the attack when he and another officer yelled at him.

Through further questioning by Smith, the officer said he quit after that shift because of the incident.

“I realized this job wasn’t for me and was a little more than what I wanted in my day-to-day life,” he said.

Smith then called on Oechsle’s former neighbor, who said Oechsle was friends with her husband. The neighbor said Oechsle had written her husband a letter, but she had opened and read it.

The letter, which Smith displayed on a screen in the courtroom, showed Oechsle saying he was in prison “with known child molesters.”

“The system is using me to do their dirty work,” Oechsle wrote. “By the time you read this, he should be in a body bag.”

The neighbor said she didn’t know about the stabbing when she turned in the letter.

Donaldson questioned the neighbor on why she was opening and reading her husband’s mail, to which the neighbor said her husband was in rehab so she read it for him.

Forensic document examiner Khody Detwiler, of Lesnevich & Detwiler, confirmed for the jury that the letter was written by Oechsle through handwriting analysis.

Detective Jeffrey Friday of the Hollidaysburg Police Department was the prosecution’s final witness and said it was odd that there was no blood on the clothing collected from Oechsle following the attack.

Through his investigation, Friday said he discovered that Oechsle had changed his clothing after a corrections officer locked him in his cell. Oechsle hid the bloody clothing in the bottom of a box containing his personal items, then piled the items on top, Friday said.

A blue Bic pen and a toothbrush sharpened into a shank were also seized, Friday said.

While on the stand, Friday removed the pen from an evidence bag to show the jury and pointed out where it had been bent from the force of the stabbing. He also showed the jury the toothbrush, which had orange cloth ripped from prison-issued clothing wrapped around the bristles to form a new handle. The original handle was then ground down to a blade, Friday said.

While Oechsle could have picked up a random pen and used it as a weapon, Friday said the shank was “something you would have been working on for some bit of time.”

When questioned about the pen, Friday said it was not standard issue and that inmates are only given the inside of pens to use, as they are not rigid. It is unclear how Oechsle came into possession of a regular pen.

The prosecution rested its case Wednesday afternoon. Potential defense testimony and closing arguments are scheduled to begin today at 9 a.m.

Oechsle was originally arrested in April 2023 after being found in his Altoona apartment with the corpse of Christopher Helsel. Oechsle later allegedly admitted to killing Helsel, according to police records, and lived with his body for three days.

Mirror Staff Writer Rachel Foor-Musselman is at 814-946-7458.