Allen Trial Day 1: Booze, Dysfunctional Relationship, Death Sentence for Postell

GENESEO — Regardless of who is found guilty, one thing became clear. If Marcus Postell and Danielle Allen had not been drinking and continuing their ping pong relationship, he would be alive, his mother wouldn’t be clutching a picture of her dead son, and Danielle Allen wouldn’t be sitting in a courtroom facing manslaughter charges with her lawyer and family behind her.

There couldn’t be two more different pictures being portrayed by the prosecution and defense Wednesday morning.

In the opening statements, District Attorney Gregory McCaffrey claims that Allen and Marcus Postell had a verbal argument that turned violent when Allen took a knife and stabbed Postell out of rage.

The mood of Allen “Suddenly changed from watching a movie to extreme anger towards Marcus Postell,” said McCaffrey. “Extreme anger that turned into extreme violence which ultimately caused her to recklessly introduce a knife into a verbal altercation.”

For the defense, they are painting Postell as a violent man who choked her and struck Allen in the face prior to being stabbed.

Defense Attorney Joe Daniels said that Postel threw Allen down onto the loveseat and began to choke her and pin her down.

“There is a rough violent struggle,” said Daniels. “He puts his hands on her neck, he squeezes it, he chokes her he tries to pin her down.”

Also revealed by the first law Enforcement official on the scene, Avon Police officer Timothy Ferrara, is that he found Allen hiding under a blanket when he arrived and he moved the murder weapon before investigators arrived.

Later in the trial, the 911 call was played to the jury. At the end of the call, you can hear Allen say “He tried to kill himself.”