Defense lawyer says man who confessed killing and burning wife was ‘not mentally well’

Lawyer: Man who said he killed wife was unwell

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — A man accused of killing his wife and burning her body was “not mentally well” when he confessed, his lawyer said Tuesday.

But the prosecutor said Werner Lippe’s recorded confessions betray the true emotions of a guilty man.

Lippe, a wealthy 68-year-old jeweler from Cortlandt, is on trial for second-degree murder in the 2008 disappearance of his 49-year-old wife, Faith. No trace of a body was found, and prosecutors say Lippe got rid of it by incinerating it in an oil drum.

He confessed three times, twice to a friend wearing a wire and once to state police.

“I hit her with a piece of wood. … I dumped her in the barrel and burned her,” Lippe said in a weepy recording heard by the Westchester County jury.

After closing arguments Tuesday, the jury deliberated for 90 minutes before retiring for the night.

Defense attorney Andrew Rubin told jurors that Lippe’s confessions were false, the product of being afraid of the friend and harassed by investigators. He said police made Lippe sit in his own urine and twice refused his request for a lawyer as they interrogated him.

As Rubin spoke, Lippe sat at the defense table, showing no emotion. Many of his wife’s friends and relatives were in the gallery.

Rubin said the emotion on the recordings shows Lippe was “overwhelmed” when police revealed to him that his friend had been working with them and had recorded his confessions.

“It’s clear that Werner is not mentally well” as he confesses, the lawyer said.

Prosecutor John O’Rourke, however, said Lippe was a sophisticated and intelligent man who committed “almost a perfect murder.”

He told the jurors Faith Lippe had been burned alive, although without a body it wasn’t clear how he had determined that.

The defense pointed out that the confessions were not corroborated by “one fragment of human remains”: no body, no bone or teeth, no DNA.

But O’Rourke said Lippe “should not be rewarded for getting rid of any and all evidence.”