By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — The trial of a career criminal charged with murdering his girlfriend opened Monday with the accused claiming the victim deliberately overdosed on pills and was depressed, despite the bloody murder scene investigators found in their Chelsea apartment.
Alleged murderer Robert Camarano, who has refused to use an attorney and chose to represent himself at trial, told jurors he got along great with his deceased girlfriend and said he had photos to prove how happy they were "up to the very last day."
Michele Hyams, 60, reconnected with Camarano, her high school classmate, in 2006, shortly after he was released from jail.
"Police and prosecution don't want you to see the pictures and they don't want you to see the pill she took that killed her, that she overdosed on," Camarano, 62, said in his brief opening statement.
Hyams was found brutally strangled and stabbed to death in her apartment at 85 Eighth Avenue on June 8, 2008.
Prosecutors said Hyams had discovered Camarano hawking her jewelry, which was the root of the deadly argument.
Hyams, who worked for the international bank UBS, had around $800,000 in savings, according to the New York Post.
Prosecutors said Camarano's alibi — that he was out of the house walking the dog and having coffee when she died — is completely trumped by the evidence.
Camarano's DNA traces were found in Hyam's fingernails and on the knife, Assistant District Attorney Peter Casolaro said. There was no sign of forced entry in the apartment either, he added.
"There was only one person who had a motive to kill her," he added.
