BUFFALO – Today, Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn announced that his office filed a motion to dismiss the indictment in the interest of justice against 67-year-old Renay Lynch of Buffalo.
Renay Lynch was prosecuted as an accomplice to the robbery and murder of her elderly landlord, 82-year-old Louise Cicelsky, who was found dead inside of her Eggertsville apartment in May 1995. Mrs. Cicelsky had been beaten and stabbed multiple times. During the investigation, Lynch confessed to Amherst Police detectives that she went to the victim’s home with another person with the intent to commit a robbery and that the other individual committed the homicide during the course of the robbery. Lynch was subsequently arrested and charged. The other person’s alleged participation was not corroborated and therefore he was never charged in connection with this crime. This individual is currently serving a life sentence for an unrelated crime in the State of Florida.
In February 1998, a jury found Lynch guilty of one count of Murder in the Second Degree (Class “A-I” felony) and one count of Robbery in the First Degree (Class “B” violent felony), convicting her of all counts in the indictment. She was sentenced as a second felony offender to 25 years to life in prison. After nearly 24 years of incarceration, our office issued a letter in support of her release under parole supervision. Lynch was released from prison in January 2022.
In 2018, Lynch’s attorneys filed a motion requesting that the Court order additional DNA testing of the crime scene evidence. Our office opposed the motion on the basis that according to Lynch’s confession she was not in the area of the victim’s home where the homicide occurred and therefore it was unlikely that her DNA would be found on that evidence. State Supreme Court Justice M. William Boller granted the motion. Further testing found no DNA evidence to link Lynch or the individual she claimed committed the murder to the crime.
In 2020, our office’s Conviction Integrity Unit began a collaborative re-investigation of the case with Lynch’s attorneys. In November 2023, her attorneys filed a motion to vacate her conviction on the basis that she did not receive a fair trial because police failed to provide our office and the defense with fingerprint evidence collected from the scene. Our office did not oppose the motion. On December 11, 2023, Justice Boller issued a Decision and Order vacating her conviction.
Without sufficient evidence to proceed with a second trial, our office filed a motion earlier this week to dismiss the indictment in the interest of justice. The order to dismiss the indictment was signed yesterday afternoon by Justice Boller.
“It has been nearly 26 years since her conviction and at this time we are unable to secure the witnesses and sufficient evidence to bring the matter before a jury again due to the passage of time. Therefore, my office requested the Court dismiss the indictment in the interest of justice. Ms. Lynch served a significant period of incarceration and I believe that this matter now deserves closure,” said Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn.
District Attorney Flynn commends Special Assistant Natalie Lesh of the Conviction Integrity Unit for her work on this case as well as Special Assistant Collen Curtin Gable and Confidential Criminal Investigator Salvatore Valvo.
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