Cayce doctor gave conflicting versions of how a man was shot, killed, investigators say
What exactly did a doctor tell investigators when they first arrived at his house moments after a man was shot and killed?
That was the focus of testimony in a Lexington County courtroom during the first day of the trial of Adam Lazzarini, a former Lexington Medical Center surgeon. He is charged with involuntary manslaughter in the shooting of medical equipment salesman William Player Holland.
Shawn Graham and Luke Pincelli of the 11th Circuit Solictor’s Office are prosecuting the case. Jack Swerling and Greg Harris are Lazzarini’s defense attorneys. Judge Debra McCaslin is presiding over the trial.
Lazzarini and Holland had spent Oct. 9, 2017, together after a trip to Georgia to see a new kind of hip surgery, the doctor told investigators who testified Wednesday. But the surgeon who was supposed to perform the operation was sick. Lazzarini and Holland spent the day together anyway, eating lunch at Cantina 76 in Columbia with the pilot who flew them to Georgia and back.
Later, Lazzarini and Holland went to the doctor’s house, where Lazzarini’s wife was making dinner. At about 7 p.m., Holland was shot as Lazzarini showed him some of the guns in the doctor’s collection.
How Holland was shot is shaping up to be central in the case. The prosecution and defense have foreshadowed that Lazzarini’s story about the shooting changed after the first day if the investigation.
While prosecutors hope shifting stories will help convince jurors that Lazzarini was criminally negligent, the doctor’s defense team has set the groundwork to convince the jury that Lazzarini was emotional, shocked and “confused.”
A 911 call and talking to the first police investigators
After Holland was shot, Lazzarini yelled from the upstairs for his wife, Vanessa Biery, to call 911.
Prosecutors played a recording of the 911 call in court. While Biery cried and sounded panicked, she told the dispatcher that her husband said Holland had accidentally shot himself. She told the dispatcher at least twice that Holland had accidentally shot himself.
Investigators arrived shortly after the 911 call.
Cayce Police Department officer Edward Pereira was the first to arrive at the scene, he told the court while on the stand. He was responding to a “self inflicted gunshot wound,” he told the court. Pereira, like the other investigators who followed him on the stand, told the court that Lazzarini was cooperative with him, answered questions and responded to requests, including giving up his shirt as evidence and allowing photos to be taken of blood that had gotten on hands and legs.
Officer Doug Bramlet III, an investigator, was on duty on the day of the shooting. He questioned Lazzarini outside his home moments after the shooting.
Lazzarini told Bramlet that he showed Holland some handguns in a bedroom and handed Holland an unloaded .45 in a holster to try on. Lazzarini said he turned around and heard a shot go off, Bramlet testified.
“’You could have shot me,’” Lazzarini said with his back to Holland. When he turned around, he saw Holland had shot himself, according to Lazzarini’s initial statement to Bramlet.
Holland was shot by a 9 mm pistol. Lazzarini told Bramlet that he did not know how Holland had gotten the 9 mm. Lazzarini hadn’t handed it to Holland, he told Bramlet.
That version of the shooting given to Bramlet differs from one already laid out by Jack Swerling, Lazzarini’s defense attorney, in opening statements to the jury. Swerling said that Lazzarini had handed Holland two guns and that Holland handed back one of them. Lazzarini thought he was being handed the unloaded .45-caliber; instead, it was a loaded 9mm gun.
Swerling also told jurors that prosecutors were going to suggest Lazzarini’s stories varied and that he was not consistent in his statement to investigators.
“He had nothing to hide,” Swerling told jurors. “He had no reason to not tell the truth. But he was in shock and he was confused.”
A different story to another investigator
Moryanne Rosario, a former deputy coroner with the Lexington County Coroner’s Office, testified that she arrived at the shooting scene sometime around 8 p.m., photographed it and asked Lazzarini questions about what happened. She wrote his responses in a report that she cited during her testimony.
The story of how Lazzarini and Holland wound up at the house with guns in their hands remained essentially the same. What changed was Lazzarini’s location when Holland was shot, according to her testimony.
Rosario testified that Lazzarini told her that he had left the bedroom to go to the bathroom. While outside the bedroom, he heard the shot go off and returned to the bedroom and found Holland with a bullet wound in his chest. He told Rosario that Holland had gotten the loaded 9 mm that killed him from the open gun safe in the bedroom.
What else did he tell investigators?
Lazzarini also told the investigators that he rendered medical aid to Holland.
He gave CPR to Holland and tried to stop the bleeding with paper towels, Lazzarini told investigators who testified.
The prosecution has already indicated in court that they plan to present witness testimony and evidence that disputes that Lazzarini gave aid.
Questions about whether Lazzarini had been drinking when the shooting happened have arose in court. Police wrote in a arrest warrant that Lazzarini was drinking.
Bramlet testified that Lazzarini told him that he and Holland had been drinking. They had beers and Scotch at the house. But Lazzarini’s defense team appears ready to assert that while their client may have been drinking, he wasn’t drunk. Swerling noted a receipt from Cantina 76, where Lazzarini and Holland had lunch, included no beers. The attorney also said that Bramlet’s report did not say Lazzarini was impaired.
What’s next and other details
The trial was scheduled to resume Thursday at 9:30 a.m.
Lexington County Coroner Margaret Fisher is set to take the stand.
The trail will take all week and will likely go into next week.
Biery, Lazzarini’s wife who called 911 moments after the shooting, was found dead in their home about seven months later. Police charged Lazzarini in Holland’s death after investigating Biery’s death. At the time, Cayce Police Department said new evidence prompted the charge.
Involuntary manslaughter is punishable by up to five years in prison.
Check back for the latest in the trial.
This story was originally published February 24, 2022 at 10:40 AM.