He admitted he hit her – but said it was for her own good.
A Queens jury today watched as a hulking National Guardsman, accused of viciously beating and drowning his girlfriend, was brought to tears during a videotaped interrogation by cops in which he claimed he hit his victim to get her to come to her sense and get out of frigid waters off the Rockaways.
“I hit her three or four times in the mist of the struggling or tussling in the water,” said David Lynch, 32, as he was questioned by detectives at the 101st Precinct in Far Rockaway for the death of Althea Lewis.
The 10-year active duty serviceman is facing 25 years to life for brutally beating Lewis in the face his military ring leaving four star-shaped indentations on her mouth, nose and both temples, prosecutors said.
“I didn’t plan for this to go this way. I just wanted to get her out of the water, I tried to get her out of the water,” cried Lynch during the Nov 23, 2010 interview as he wiped his tears on a white towel wrapped around his broad shoulders.
Some of the jurors lifted their faces from the video’s transcript – which Queens Supreme Court Justice Kenneth C. Holder ordered for them to read along with the footage — to see Lynch weep uncontrollably.
Lynch and Lewis were dating for less than a month when she lost her job as an LA Fitness supervisor. He claimed she “started to feel sad.”
“She had suicidal thoughts…I wanted to make everything better for her, I miss her, I miss her,” he said through sobs during the hour-long interrogation.
Lewis’ face also had a bite mark on her cheek which Lynch explained was a “love bite.”
“She looked very different from the last time I saw her. Her face was swollen and bludgeoned,” testified Lewis’ father, Roy Allen, 70, when he saw his daughter’s face at the morgue.
Lynch tearfully admitted that they both drank two bottles of brandy before they went for a “15 to 30 minute” dip in the ocean to fool around.
He continued to explain to detectives and prosecutors that he wanted to save Lewis and performed CPR, as he is “trained to do.”
Some of Lewis’ loved ones left the courtroom during the video in tears.