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Almost a year before Paul Horvat Jr. was found shot to death in the woods outside of Uniontown, a hunter named Lawrence Cseripko began plotting to pull the trigger after the two had fought over deer, police said.

Police investigated this in 1998, when they had questioned Cseripko about Horvat’s Dec. 16, 1997, slaying in Menallen Township. The 58-year-old Uniontown man maintained his innocence, but it wasn’t his story that led to his arrest.

It’s what police found in his freezer that did.

“They’re saying that I shot him and took his deer,” Cseripko told his wife, Mary, as she wept during a break at his arraignment on Thursday — less than a month before what would have been Horvat’s 61st birthday.

Cseripko sat there with shackles draped over his brown boots. He wore blue jeans and a green shirt with ducks printed on it. Looking ready for a camping trip or a hike through the woods, he even wore a camouflage hat, which District Justice Rick Vernon instructed him to take off during the proceeding.

Charged with a single count of homicide, Cseripko is not eligible for bond and was taken to the Fayette County Prison.

The basis of his arrest: a witness’ statement and frozen deer meat.

Using DNA technology, police were able to determine that venison seized from Cseripko’s freezer during a March 11, 1998, search was a genetic match to deer entrails and blood found near Horvat’s body.

Working with Saratoga Springs, N.Y.-based Therion International Laboratories, police developed a database of deer DNA to help strengthen their case that not only did Cseripko shoot Horvat, but he took his kill, too.

Death records indicate Horvat had a residence in Big Lake, Alaska, but hunted all over the country. He worked as a laborer and was divorced. He apparently was staying with family members in the Uniontown area at the time of his death.

He was found in a stream at 1:30 a.m. on Dec. 17, 1997, about 1,000 feet off Baer Road in a wooded area of Menallen Township. His sister had reported him missing several hours before.

A nearby resident, Dewey Lawrence Stewart, told police that he was out for a walk the morning of Dec. 16 and saw Horvat in a tree stand in the woods. The two chatted briefly about a deer Horvat had just shot.

Later, Stewart spotted Cseripko wearing blaze orange and holding a .243-caliber rifle.

Stewart told the police he remembered telling Cseripko that he had just bumped into Horvat. Then he told police about the fight he remembered the two men had about a year before — something about illegal deer, he recalled — and about the time Cseripko told him that he’d kill Horvat in the woods if he ever had the chance.

After Stewart and Cseripko parted ways, Stewart went back home. He told police he remembered hearing two gunshots. A short time later, he saw Cseripko’s truck driving away.

Police questioned Cseripko on Jan. 9, 1998. He denied speaking with Stewart. He denied owning a .243-caliber rifle, too. Police said he wouldn’t tell them that he was in the woods the day Horvat was killed, either.

Closing the case took deer meat.

According to the affidavit of probable cause in support of the charges, police turned over 24 deer meat samples to Therion International, a company which has worked with the DNA of more than 350 different breeds and species of animal.

Trooper Daniel J. Venick said getting samples to the lab took time.

Police got them from deer that became road kill near the crime scene, he said, adding that some were from deer shot by hunters there.

“We needed to get various samples to build a database,” he said. “They had enough to make an affirmative match.”

The service cost the county $6,000, according to District Attorney Nancy Vernon, who reported that figure to the county commissioners during a recent budget meeting.

Cseripko was arrested twice in the 1980s, according to Fayette County court records. Full details of his record were not available yesterday.

He appeared calm during his arraignment, but his daughter, 30-year-old Lori Smith, of Uniontown, had to be hauled away in a police cruiser after she yelled at a news photographer and shoved a state trooper.

Venick said Smith was charged with harassment and disorderly conduct, both summary offenses.

A preliminary hearing for Cseripko is scheduled for Nov. 5.

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