Judge: DNA Found in Peterson's Boat Admissible

FOX ^ | 11/17/03

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

A pathologist who examined Laci Peterson's badly decomposed body testified Monday that he could find no evidence of wounds and could not determine what weapon may have been used to kill her.

Testifying for the prosecution at a preliminary hearing for Scott Peterson (search), forensic pathologist Dr. Brian Peterson, no relation to the couple, said Laci Peterson's neck, head, forearms and one of her feet were missing.

[Catspaw]

Will this prelim ever end? It took Virginia less time to try and convict John Allen Muhammed.

[TotusTuus]

...said Laci Peterson's neck, head, forearms and one of her feet were missing.

Just a curious question:

How exactly would the head be present if the neck was missing?

[deJaz]

I heard that the hair was twisted around the pliars.Certainly doesn't look good for Scott.

[OldFriend]

Does anyone think Henry Lee has a drop of credibility after the OJ case?

It disgusts me to see him on TV with the latest pathology expert, our very own Sean Hannity.

[PistolPaknMama]

I think I read that the head washed up separately.

[John Valentine]

As for the hair on the boat...

It is my understanding that the ssingle hair was found on a pair of pliers, on the boat, making the hair even less relevant. And ONE hair on the boat, even if it is Lacy's, does not prove that she was on the boat, but if after a thourough forensic search of the boat, this is all they could come up with, it is pretty good evidence that seh never was on the boat.

Second, as I understand it this hair was NOT pulled from her scalp, it was a naturally falling hair.

So, you tell me, how does this add up to guilt?

You may be right that Scott did it, but the prosecution had better have much better than this crap if they want a conviction.

[John Valentine]

So, you have one of Laci's hairs stuck to (or wrapped around) a pair of pliers.

Accept for a moment that this was NOT a hair pulled from Laci Peterson's scalp, but was a naturally falling hair, as I understand is the fact of the matter.

Accept also that the hair could have been stuck to the pliers for weeks or months, and no one has any idea how it got there, let alone any proof.

Now the pliers get left on the boat - with the hair.

Accept that it is Laci's hair. Acceept that they are Scotts pliers and Scott's boat.

Accept that this is hair is the single piece of evidence revealed by the prosecution that connects Laci and the boat in even the sligtest degree.

You say that this "cerainly doesn't look good for Scott."

I'll tell you that a good defense attourney would love these facts. They actually tend to prove that Laci was never on this boat either when alive or afterwards.

Neither Mark Geragos or his client has anything to fear if this is the best that the prosecution can come up with.

[dead]

The man's wife's hair on his boat is about the most useless piece of evidence in the world.

It's his boat, and he probably touched his wife now and then, making the transference of her hair to the boat absolutely useless.

If she was a total stranger to him, this would be really important evidence (sort of like Ron Goldman's blood on OJs truck.)

I mean, there's no way Peterson's not guilty, but I just don't get the significance of the hair here.

[John Valentine]

I agree with you that there are very many strange elements to his behavior, a certain number of unexplained inconsistencies - actually both for and against his guilt, and very little of it alone would bring a juror to a conclusion of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

I suppose tha the question that naturally occurs to most people is "If not Scott, then who?" Who else had motive, means and opportunity? That's a fair conclusion.

But that still does not add up to guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

I will say this.

If I were on the jury and a prosecutor layed out a theory of the case to me that has Scott Peterson killing Laci somewhere else, driving her body to the Bay, dragging her from the car into a small boat, and sinking her body off shore, and the only forensic evidence linking her to the boat was a single strand of natually fallen hair stuck to a pair of pliers that had been left in the boat, I am unhesitatingly going for a not guilty verdict myself, regardless of my personal feeling about the case.

For me to go for a guilty verdict they would need an eye witness, or forensic evidence that places Laci's body in the trunk of Scotts car or in the boat. Far from proving this pont to me, a single strand of her hair, not actually on the boat, but on a pair of pliers on the boat, tells me just the opposite.