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Authors: Michael Benson

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And further, didn’t Noppinger tell Morales that it would be worth it to the lab if word got around that they’d done the testing that cinched a guilty verdict for such a notorious case?
Noppinger said he didn’t remember; at which point, Scotese produced an e-mail Noppinger had written. After reading the e-mail, Noppinger admitted that he had made the offer to Morales to test the shell casing for DNA for free.
“Did you offer to type Mr. King’s and Ms. Lee’s profile for free?”
“No.”
“Why not, because it wasn’t good for business?”
“I would strongly disagree with that.”
Scotese quizzed Noppinger about how long various aspects of the lab work took, painting a picture for the jury of long and tedious work. From beginning to end, the process would last three days if scientists worked a twenty-four-hour day. Wasn’t it a grueling effort that could be easily lightened by cutting corners?
The witness, again, strongly disagreed.
Scotese brought up some items from this case that Noppinger tested, but about which the prosecution had not asked. These items included the blue jeans, black boxer shorts, and black sneakers that King was wearing at the time of his arrest. Of these, blood was found only on the shorts—blood that most likely came from the defendant. Nothing connecting the defendant to the victim was found on those items.
 
 
On redirect, Suzanne O’Donnell asked Kevin Noppinger what type of testing he did on the shell casing found near the burial site. The witness replied that the search for DNA on the shell was done with a DNA profile kit known as MiniFiler, which was a relatively new kit—“cutting-edge,” Noppinger called it—designed specifically for degraded samples.
“Were you able to obtain any DNA profile from the shell casing?”
“No, I was not.”
In addition to receiving reference samples for the victim and defendant, DLI also received samples from Carlos Saenz, Harold Muxlow, Robert Salvador, and Nate Lee.
“Did you find any matches on any of the items you analyzed with any of these other reference samples?”
“No.”
 
 
Lewis “Skip” Wood took the witness stand and testified that he was an SCSO employee who currently reported to the supervisor of the Forensic Services Unit. He reported to crime scenes and submitted written reports regarding his findings. He’d worked for the sheriff’s office since 1992 and had worked in the Patrol/Bomb Unit and on the dive team before being assigned to forensics. He attended classes at the graduate level at the University of Maryland and was a professional archaeologist.
“What is an archaeologist?”
“I’m a dirt detective. In non–police work, I evaluate soils and cultural remains to determine what types of people lived in an area in the past and what their culture was like.”
In January of 2008, he assisted the NPPD with the recovery of Denise Lee’s body. The process had to be done very carefully, since the body needed to be unearthed and eventually removed from the site without destroying any potential evidence.
He told the jury about protecting the site with sandbags overnight, and how he and archaeologist Maxine Miller began the actual digging on the morning of January 19. Photos were taken after each small layer of earth was removed. Eventually scallop marks could be seen indicating that someone had dug a hole at this spot with a round-nosed shovel. No, the archaeologists could not have made these marks as they only used much smaller hand tools. The victim’s shoulder became visible first; then, slowly and carefully, the rest of her.
That ended the direct examination of the archaeologist. There was no cross-examination. The witness was excused, and Judge Economou called the lunch recess.
 
 
That afternoon, Maxine Miller testified that she was a crime scene analyst and nine-year veteran of the SCSO. Like Lewis Wood, Miller was an archaeologist who helped with the excavation of the victim’s remains. Just like Temperance Brennan, the protagonist in the
Bones
TV show, Miller was an anthropological archaeologist who also used her considerable skills to help solve crimes.
It had been her job to search the grave site for fingerprints. She had also been the photographer who memorialized the hole at each stage of the dig, after each layer, or stratum, of earth was removed.
When emptying out the already-loosened earth with the grave site, they were careful not to excavate new earth for fear that they would inadvertently alter the position of the body. They wanted to be sure that they found the body just as the killer had left it. Wearing her booties, cap, and jumpsuit at the scene, Miller continued to work after the body was removed.
The witness was shown the photographs taken during the excavation process. She said those were the photos she took. The images were on a screen and Miller used a laser pointer to demonstrate her points: the darker soil and the scallop marks of the round-nosed shovel.
“What type of tools did you use as you dug?”
“We used a variety of small shovels. When the body became visible, we switched to brushes.”
“What were the shovels made of?”
“Plastic. I should add that, like any good archaeologist, we did a lot of digging with our hands as well.”
She described for the jury the removal of the body from the grave, and the official transfer of the remains to the medical examiner, who took them to the morgue for autopsy.
No further questions, no cross, witness excused.
 
 
Following the natural order of the prosecution’s case, the next witness was forensic pathologist Dr. Daniel Schultz. He was also the medical director at LifeLink, a nonprofit organization that helped facilitate organ and bone marrow transplants. He was not the medical examiner, but rather his backup, a role he served now and at the time of the murder. When the call came in that remains were found, it was he who came to the scene and supervised the removal of the body from the shallow grave.
For the jury’s sake, he felt it was okay to refer to him as the medical examiner. He was qualified, and that was the role he served in this case. Enunciating upon those qualifications, he told the jury about his bachelor’s degree in chemistry, his medical degree from the University of Michigan, and the pathology residency he’d completed.
“What was your first task after you took possession of the remains?” asked Lon Arend.
“To determine the cause and manner of death.”
“You performed the autopsy. Is that correct?”
“Yes. It began at eight-thirty
A.M.
, January twentieth.”
“You had performed autopsies before, Dr. Schultz?”
“Oh, yes, somewhere between four and five thousand autopsies.”
“Had you ever before done one involving a gunshot wound?”
“Yes. Hundreds.”
“Ever dealt with cases that involved vaginal and anal damage?”
“Yes.”
“Any cases that involved blunt-force trauma?”
Dr. Schultz said he had, and defined what “blunt-force” meant for those who might not know. Any blow to a body that didn’t involve a pointy stabbing object was considered blunt-force trauma. The most common injury that resulted from blunt-force trauma was bruising or contusions, in which blood vessels broke, creating a purple area. People were familiar with bruises. They turned a variety of colors as they healed. Abrasions, on the other hand, were usually caused by contact with rough surfaces, and involved tearing of the skin.
Arend asked the witness to take the jury through the process of determining the cause and manner of death in an apparent homicide.
The witness replied that evidence came in different ways. There was what he could observe during the postmortem operation, the results of evidence collected during the autopsy and sent to the crime lab, and photographs and eyewitness statements regarding the conditions in which the body was found. All of those things together hopefully made the medical examiner’s conclusion an easy one—which was true in this case.
He’d arrived at the grave site as the body was slowly uncovered. The body was found thirty-nine inches from the surface, naked, on its left side, in the fetal position. He described how he and another man had wrapped a plastic sheet around the body before it was lifted from the makeshift grave.
“Did the depth of the hole have an effect on any of your analyses?”
“The victim had been buried in moist sand, and that was a factor.” This was because it could speed up the cooling of the body and affect his ability to determine the time of death. The moisture of the earth was such that the hands were pruney, like hands belonging to drowning victims.
There was a pause in the questioning as Judge Economou read aloud for the jury a stipulation that the body found in the shallow grave was indeed that of Denise Amber Lee.
Dr. Schultz described the autopsy. They began by removing her jewelry, which consisted of a gray-metal necklace with a heart-shaped pendant, one earring—the other was found near the grave site—and a wedding ring. Arend showed the pathologist photos of these items and he identified them as those removed at the autopsy. Arend asked if the items were the same as when he saw them, and Dr. Schultz replied that the wedding ring had been cleaned before the photograph was taken.
The judge announced a stipulation that the jewelry did belong to Denise Lee.
The body, the pathologist testified, was measured and weighed, and the wounds to it were itemized.
Arend showed Dr. Schultz photos of a bruised arm and wrist, and the witness positively ID’d them as those taken at the autopsy. The jury could see for itself—the bruises resembled handprints, caused by someone squeezing the woman hard, like a vise grip.
There were bruises on the legs, up and down, crotch to ankle. You could almost see the handprints. The bruises were caused by four fingers and a thumb, here, here, and there. Then there was the yellow bruise on the back, perhaps caused after the victim was dead.
There were injuries to the face and head, of course. These were particularly difficult to view on the screen, as Denise was recognizable in some images. But it had to be done. The jury had to
see
what the defendant had done.
Dr. Schultz noted at the grave site that the body had fixed lividity on the left side and rigor mortis was complete, all of which was consistent with the murder taking place during the early evening of January 17, only hours after the defendant stole Denise Lee from her home. Arend asked if there was any evidence inconsistent with the murder taking place at that time, and the pathologist said there was not.
Dr. Schultz described the gunshot wound, a little entrance wound above the left eye and a larger exit wound behind the opposite ear, through the head, from left to right.
“From how far away was she shot?”
“The gun was pressed directly against her head when the trigger was pulled,” the pathologist replied.
“Could the gun have been an inch away?”
“No. It was in contact with the skin.”
Arend asked how Dr. Schultz could determine which direction the bullet had traveled. He replied that the internal beveling in the skull positively proved direction, but the fact that one wound was small, and the other large and outwardly explosive, was also a strong indication that this was the way it happened.
Dr. Schultz testified that the bullet had traveled directly behind and parallel to the left eyebrow. The force of the shot exploded the left eyeball outward and fractured the bone at either side of that eye socket.
Arend asked what happened when an eyeball exploded, and Dr. Schultz said a thick gooey fluid that looked like mucus emerged from inside the eyeball.
Arend drew Dr. Schultz’s attention to the gooey mucus-like fluid that had been found on the defendant’s Camaro and asked if this could have come from the inside of the victim’s exploding eyeball. The pathologist said it could.
“Were you able to determine the angle at which the bullet went through Denise’s head?”
“Not the exact angle. I give estimates. It went left to right, front to back.” The exit wound was slightly below the entrance wound. The bullet had ranged slightly downward.
Arend gave the witness a facsimile of the murder weapon and asked for him to get up and demonstrate how, in his opinion, the shot was fired.
Dr. Schultz stood next to Arend, placed the muzzle of the nine-millimeter pistol against the attorney’s left temple, and said,
“Bang.”
“And it is your testimony that the gunshot was what killed her?”
“Yes.”
Dr. Schultz explained to the horrified jury that he had successfully swabbed the woman’s vagina and anus for semen, and that there was bruising in both places caused by insertion trauma that was inconsistent with consensual sex.
Lon Arend concluded his questioning, and Jerry Meisner cross-examined.
BOOK: Michael Benson's True Crime Bundle
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