Slaying defense uses victim's words: Angry phone tapes
       played at woman's trial
   The Record  (Bergen County, NJ)
       NEWS ; Page A03
   March 9, 2002

Byline: PAULO LIMA, STAFF WRITER
    Michael Collins voice spat insults from a silver micro-cassette
player in a Hackensack courtroom Friday a voice from beyond the grave.
    "You're a little expletive and I know where you are and I'm going to
come there and I'm going to start shooting," Collins screamed.
    The comments were some of Collins final words, left on his girlfriend
Irene Swietkowski's answering machine about an hour before she fatally
shot him inside his Hackensack apartment
Sept. 4, 1999.
    Swietkowski, 26, is on trial for aggravated manslaughter.
    Seated at the defense table, Swietkowski was instantly affected as
Collins voice resounded through the courtroom. The petite blonde's face
contorted with emotion, flushed red, and
finally released a quiet stream of tears.
    Defense attorney Jeffrey Garrigan is hoping the tape will help
convince jurors that his client feared for her life when the drunken
Collins confronted her that morning. Garrigan contends that Swietkowski
picked up the gun in self-defense and that it went off as she and Collins
struggled for control.
    Shot through the heart, Collins died almost instantly.
    Bergen County Assistant Prosecutor Danielle Grootenboer contends
Swietkowski was reckless when she picked up the pistol.
    If convicted, Swietkowski faces up to 30 years in state prison.
    In his opening argument to the jury, Garrigan called the tape the
most significant evidence in the case.
    In the hours preceding the shooting, the couple had argued while they
were out bar hopping. Swietkowski drove off and left Collins beside the
road in Saddle Brook.
    As he walked home, Collins left three telephone messages at 4:28
a.m., 4:41 a.m., and 5:13 a.m. on the answering machine at Swietkowski's
home in Kearny, which she shared with her family.
    Unbeknown to Collins, Swietkowski had driven back to his Hackensack
apartment and gone to sleep.
    In the second profanity-laced message, Collins is clearly unhappy to
be on foot.
   

"Whoever is around you dies and you die," he said. "Leave me
stranded, I'll teach you!"
    Blood tests revealed that Collins had cocaine in his system and a
blood-alcohol level of 0.17 shortly after his death.
Collins, 26, an electrician and part-time bouncer at a Hackensack go-go
bar, had dated Swietkowski for about 7 1/2 years.
    The defense called two witnesses Friday. They testified that the 6-
foot, 200-pound Collins had beaten Swietkowski in the past. Garrigan
showed the jury enlarged photographs of
Swietkowski bearing bruises around her eyes and along her jawline. One of
her eyes was reddened from a ruptured blood vessel.
    One of the witnesses, Linda Macaluso, testified that she took
Swietkowski to the Hackensack Police Department to seek a restraining
order after the beating. A desk officer sent them to
the municipal court building next door. When they could find no one there
to help them, the desk officer told them to come back Monday, Macaluso
said.
    "I was a little bit disappointed that the police weren't able to help
us, so I took pictures of her face myself," Macaluso testified.
    Swietkowski's brother, Robert, drove his sister back to the police
station a few days later. By then, however, she had changed her mind and
refused to cooperate with police, he said.
    The case will resume Tuesday. The defense has not announced whether
Swietkowski plans to testify. Superior Court Judge Donald R. Venezia told
the jury he expects to turn the case over
to them for deliberations Wednesday.