Perfect Murder, Perfect Town (78 page)

Russell, Charlie

Ryckman, Lisa

Rysavy, Jirka

Sachs, Richard

Sahagun, Louis

Sandstead, Morris

Sandy, Lloyd

Savage, Suzanne

Sawyer, Brett

Sawyer, Diane

Schanfield, Moses

Scheck, Barry

Schild, Peter

Schoettler, Gail

Schuler, Dan

Schulte, Paula

Scott, Brian

Scott, Rex

Sears, Todd

Sebastian, Matt

Secrist, Ron

Shapiro, Jeff

Shoeny, Allison

Shomaker, Cpt.

Silverman, Craig

Simons, Randy

Simpson, Nicole

Simpson, O. J.

Singular, Stephen

Sirotnak, Andrew

Smartt, Annie

Smartt, Bob

Smiles, Harry

Smika, Thayne

Smit, Lou

Smith, James

Smith, Kerri S.

Smith, Lawrence Shawn

Smith, Susan

Solano, Henry

Spitz, Werner

Spurlock, Nicole

Stack, John

Stanley, Chris

Stanton, Melody

Stavely, John

Stevens, Don

Stewart, Kim

Stine, Doug

Stine, Glen

Stine, Susan

Stobie, Jane

Stout, Chuck

Sutton, Leonard

Talkington, Tim

Thomas, Dave

Thomas, Karena Jesaitis

Thomas, Robert, Jr.

Thomas, Steve

Thompson, James (aka J. T. Colfax)

Tigar, Michael

Torke, Dave

Towle, Patricia

Tracey, Michael

Trujillo, Tom

Ubowski, Chet

Vallad, Tracey

Van Fossen, Theresa

Vann, Patrick and Mary

Vargas, Elizabeth

Vasquez, Nathan

Veitch, Karl

Vernon, Mary Ellen

Verrengia, Joseph

Wagner, Laurie

Walker family

Walker, Ron

Walker, Roxy

Walters, Barbara

Webb, Jonathan N.

Weber, Melissa

Wecht, Cyril

Wegman-French, Morton

Weinheimer, Carey

Weiss, Barry

Weiss, Kristen

Wells, Sid

Wesson, Marianne

Westmoreland, Rod

White, Daphne

White, Fleet

White, Fleet, Jr.

White, Priscilla

Whiteside, Carl

Whitson, Bob

Wickman, Tom

Wilcox, Linda

Williams, Brian

Williams, Dave

Wilson, Mark

Wise, Bill

Wise, Diane

Wolf, Chris

Wolf, Denise

Womack, Burt

Woodall, Iris

Woodbury, Dick

Woodward, Paula

Wright, David

Wright, Ronald

Wyton, Pat

Yamaguchi, Kerry

Yoshihara-Daly, Jo-Lynn

Zales, Joan

Zaret, Elliot

Ziemer, Eugene

Zimmer, Rachelle

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Victim assistance advocates serve crime victims but are employees of law enforcement. Their job is to minimize the victims’ trauma. They are trained to recognize and meet the emotional needs of victims and/or their loved ones, whether it is to listen to their story or create an emotionally safe environment.

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A phone
tap
provides direct access to a conversation so that it can be recorded or monitored. A phone
trap
collects data from the telephone company, which includes the telephone number called or caller ID and the names that are listed in association with the number.

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Sudden infant death syndrome.

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Before any interrogation of a person taken into custody, the person must be warned 1) that he has a right to remain silent; 2) that any statement he makes can be used as evidence against him; 3) that he has the right to the presence of an attorney; 4) that if he cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for him prior to any questioning if he so desires; 5) that he may end the questioning at any time. The instruction stems from a case in which a suspect, Ernesto Miranda, was tricked into confessing by being told that he had been picked out of a lineup.

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Case:
Schmerber
v.
California
, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1966 [384 U.S. 757, opinion by Justice Brennan, 5-4 decision]. The Colorado Rules of Criminal Procedure [Rule 41.1] authorize any judge to issue an order requiring a person to supply such
non-testimonial
materials if there are reasonable grounds to believe the person committed a criminal offense.
Reasonable grounds
is a lenient standard, amounting to less than probable cause.

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DNA is the abbreviation for deoxyribonucleic acid, the genetic material that is the “blueprint” for the development of every living thing. Except in the case of identical twins, every individual’s DNA is unique and unchanging throughout life. It is found in cells from skin, blood, hair follicles (although not the shaft), saliva, and semen. In 1984 researchers at Leicester University in England invented a technique for recording segments of DNA in a pattern resembling a grocery bar code.

*
Barry Scheck is codirector of the Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York, which uses DNA testing to exonerate inmates wrongfully convicted of crimes. Mr. Scheck is also commissioner of New York’s Forensic Science Review Board, an agency charged with creating the states’s DNA databank. “In 11 cases where DNA testing has exonerated a wrongly convicted person,” Scheck wrote in
Newsweek
on November 16, 1998, “DNA has also led to finding the real perpetrator.”

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An RFLP (restriction fragment length polymorphism) test is a sophisticated DNA test measuring varying lengths of DNA strands produced by their reaction to a specific enzyme. The results can yield ratios demonstrating that the likelihood of two people having the same genetic patterns is hundreds of millions to one.
      PCR (polymerase chain reaction) typing (also known as molecular Xeroxing) is a process in which tiny bits of DNA are replicated thousands of times to allow analysis and comparison. Once the DNA is amplified, it can be typed through genetic probes. While hundreds of genes can be examined, not all are suitable for forensic analysis. In the Ramsey case, the DQ-alpha and D1S80 genes were among those compared. The genes analyzed through PCR are not the same as those examined through RFLP testing, but PCR results can also yield ratios demonstrating that the likelihood of two people having the same combination of genetic markers is hundreds of millions to one.

**
The greatest risk of contamination of DNA comes from other DNA samples. Material is collected with disposable tweezers by police officers and lab techicians, who are required to change gloves each time they pick up a sample. At a complex crime scene, an officer might use fifty or more pairs of gloves.

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A Colorado statute, C.R.S.16-3-309, generally authorizes the use of laboratory testing procedures by the prosecution, so long as procedures are in place to preserve possible exculpatory evidence (evidence that points to the possible innocence of a person). The statute hints, however, that “when a suspect has been identified or apprehended,” the suspect or his counsel may have a right to be present at destructive procedures that will not leave enough evidentiary material for later defense testing. The statute does not provide for a definition of “suspect” or explain what degree of suspicion is necessary before one is deemed to have been “identified.” Whiteside apparently took the view that a person was not a suspect until he had been named by police as such, charged or arrested in connection with a crime.

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The presence of facts or circumstances strong enough to produce a reasonable belief that the person charged with a crime is guilty. It does not indicate proof beyond a reasonable doubt but is enough to force the accused to stand trial. Also, in cases of search and seizure, it indicates the presence of sufficient evidence that the property subject to seizure is at a specified place.

**
The level of certainty a juror needs in order to make a legal finding of guilt for a criminal defendant. This phrase is employed in jury instructions during a criminal trial, indicating that the defendant’s innocence is presumed unless the jury can see no reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the person charged. This standard does not require that proof be so convincing that no chance of error exists. It means that evidence must be conclusive enough that all reasonable doubt is removed from the mind of an ordinary person.

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There is no Colorado law mandating that the police department cooperate with the district attorney.

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Pete Hofstrom, who was present during the conversation with Patsy, was familiar with the Michael Manning case discussed on page 281. In that case the child’s mother, Elizabeth Manning, was told she would be treated “as a witness” rather than as a suspect. She then disclosed that her child was beaten to death by her companion. When she was prosecuted for murder, the Colorado courts held that because of what a deputy had promised, neither Manning’s disclosure nor anything the police learned from following up on it could be used as evidence against her. It is likely that the sheriff’s officers interviewing Patsy Ramsey assumed that what she told them on that occasion could never be used against her. That was probably wrong.

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Evidence that points to the possible innocence of a person.

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Hair has thirty-five characteristics, some of which are pigmentation, medulla, scales on the outside of hair, and the channel that runs through the center of each strand.

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The steps in DNA testing are as follows: Blood, semen, saliva, skin, or hair is labeled and shipped to a forensics lab. Only minute amounts—a single hair root, for example—are required. Then the sample is mixed with detergent and enzymes, which break open the cells and let out their DNA. The cell fragments are removed, and the remaining mixture is spun in a centrifuge tube. Pure DNA settles at the bottom. The DNA is then amplified. Its double helix is separated into two strands. Technicians add twenty-six short pieces of DNA, called primers: sequences of the chemicals C, A, T, and G that link to the beginning and end of thirteen different places on a person’s DNA. Then replication takes place. When a primer attaches to the beginnings of one of the thirteen sites, it acts like the start button on a photocopying machine, turning on cellular machinery that makes a million copies or more of each site. Copies of the thirteen sites, each about one hundred to six hundred chemical letters long, are separated by size through gel electrophoresis. In this process, a drop containing millions of DNA fragments is placed at one end of a sheet of gel. Electric current pulls the fragment across the gel; the larger the fragment, the more slowly it moves. The fragments, tagged with dye, show up as colored bands under ultraviolet light. The lab compares the length of the thirteen markers to the lengths of a suspect’s thirteen markers. The more markers that match, the greater the odds are that it is a definitive match. If all thirteen strands in one person’s DNA are identical to all the lengths in another person’s, the odds are one in trillions that it isn’t a match.