O.J. Forensics Expert Consulted in Peterson Case

Fox News ^ | Monday, June 09, 2003 | Fox News

[runningbear]

all stories are excerpted....

[runningbear]

pinging...

[runningbear]

pinging...

[runningbear]

pinging...

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

I knew that Henry Lee would be involved in the case the minute he opened his mouth and said that " I can't confirm or deny".

[MEG33]

Thanks

[Reaganwuzthebest]

On Friday, in a rare show of emotion, Peterson dabbed his eyes as a judge decided not to release the autopsy reports for Laci and the couple's unborn son, Conner. Peterson has been criticized for his lack of emotion since Laci vanished.

Sounds more like the new style in clothes, it's contrived. He's going to do anything to save himself, but surfing for GHB? His lawyers gonna have some 'splaining to do on that one, especially if they find proof he purchased it.

[runningbear]

yeah, and KCBS stated yesterday, Lee isn't saying he would or not nor which side.... ;o(

[runningbear]

I think in MG's eyes, as I listened to KTVU's video clip last week, Geragos made this statement, that it is his client's life he is saving, there for .....(arguing on the wiretaps against releasing them.) So, I think one strategy MG is aiming at, knowing that maybe scaughty is indeed guilty of murdering Laci and Conner, that he get life, not death?

[verity]

The circus continues!

[runningbear]

Trial without body a puzzler
El Dorado faces two such murder cases: Jan Scharf and a boy who vanished in '85.

>>>This could of been a "what if" on Laci and Conner if not washed up!>>>

Trial without body a puzzler
El Dorado faces two such murder cases: Jan Scharf and a boy who vanished in '85.

By Niesha Gates -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Monday, June 2, 2003

Two different murders.

One county.

No bodies.

This is the unusual situation in El Dorado County, where the District Attorney's Office is gearing up for two murder trials, both of which are missing the most tell-tale piece of evidence: a corpse.

Though uncommon, "bodyless murder cases" are increasingly showing up in courts across the state -- primarily due to scientific advances and publicity -- and are posing a variety of challenges for law enforcement and prosecutors.

But experts agree that bringing two bodyless homicides to trial at the same time, not to mention in a rural county, is rare.

"It's unusual to have these cases go to trial because there are a lot of barriers in bringing forward a homicide case, especially when you don't have a body," said Ruth Jones, a criminal law professor at McGeorge School of Law. "The real test is for the prosecution ... and whether the pieces all come together and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim is dead and was killed by the defendant."

The first case is that of Jan Scharf, the 45-year-old UC Davis Medical Center nurse who disappeared May 14, 2002, after returning to her Cameron Park home from a 12-hour shift. Her estranged husband, Glyn Scharf, was arrested on a warrant two days after the first anniversary of Jan Scharf's disappearance last month. He was charged with her murder on May 19 but has not yet entered a plea.

The other case involves the disappearance of a 4-year-old boy, Alexander "Salaam" Olive, who vanished from the South Lake Tahoe area around December 1985. The El Dorado County District Attorney's Office is in the process of extraditing the boy's father, Ulysses H. Roberson, from Walla Walla, Wash., where he is serving a 14-year sentence for rape, said El Dorado County District Attorney Gary Lacy.

Roberson was charged with his son's murder in October 2001. Roberson has not entered a plea, pending extradition, Lacy said Friday.

In both cases, key pieces of circumstantial evidence were needed, a feat law enforcement and prosecutors cite as one of the most challenging, and time-consuming, aspects of bodyless murder cases.

In the Scharf case, one of the pieces of circumstantial evidence is a report Jan Scharf filed just weeks before her disappearance, in which she told El Dorado County sheriff's deputies that she believed her husband was poisoning her, Lacy said.

It took nearly 18 years for charges to be filed in the Roberson case because prosecutors were recently able to find and question key witnesses and to obtain DNA evidence from blood off a blanket allegedly used by Alexander Olive.

"While we don't have a sample of DNA evidence to compare it to, the DNA does indicate that it's from a child of his age," Lacy said.

Scientific advances, including DNA analysis, have greatly aided prosecutors in bringing bodyless homicides to trial, said Thomas Testa, a deputy district attorney for San Joaquin County who has prosecuted two such cases.

"We had one case from the mid-'80s that wasn't solved until DNA testing came into the picture," he said. "Now, all you need is a very little amount of blood -- even just one or two drops -- to get a successful reading. (DNA) is making it more and more likely for these bodyless homicides to reach trial."

The increase in this type of case prompted a seminar on missing-body homicides last month at the California District Attorneys Association's National Homicide Symposium in Costa Mesa.

During the lecture, Debora Lloyd, a senior deputy district attorney for Orange County who prosecuted three bodyless murder cases in five years in the late 1990s, addressed specific challenges unique to bodyless homicides.

A big obstacle is overcoming the inability to question a pathologist and determine a cause of death, she said.

"There are jurors out there who will not sit on a jury without a body," she said in a phone interview from her Santa Ana office last week. "But what they need to realize is that people can easily dispose of bodies."

El Dorado County's landscape includes hiking trials, mine shafts and waterways, making it a veritable homicide dumping ground, said Lt. Kevin House, spokesman for the El Dorado County Sheriff's Office.

"We get a lot of body dumps here because we're remote and there's a wide expanse of land," he said.

.........

[runningbear]

court trials, indeed becomes a circus, but in any event, the people do learn from it... ;o)

[runningbear]

ALERT: The BROWN VAN STORY:

Vans continue to fuel mysteries

Newman resident Vera Alizaga, 41, thinks the tip she provided led Scott Peterson's defense team to examine a van.
ADRIAN MENDOZA/THE BEE

Homer and Helen Maldonado say they saw a van in the Petersons' neighborhood. AL GOLUB/THE BEE

(wonder if homer got his name after the Simpson? Doh!! ))

Vans continue to fuel mysteries

By GARTH STAPLEY
BEE STAFF WRITER
Published: June 11, 2003, 05:34:26 AM PDT

A Newman woman believes her tip about a suspicious van two weeks ago led Scott Peterson's defense attorneys to acquire the vehicle as a possible clue in the Laci Peterson murder case.

The same day police received Vera Alizaga's tip, they examined a van and announced that there was no connection to the double-murder case. They won't say whether her tip led them to the van they towed to a crime lab.

Also, people who spotted a van in the Petersons' neighborhood about the time the pregnant woman disappeared noted that the one they saw bears little resemblance to the one Alizaga described.

And that could mean, the witnesses said, that the van they saw "is still out there."

The search for tan and brown vans might figure into a theory that such a vehicle played a part in the deaths of Laci Peterson and her unborn son, Conner. Her husband has pleaded not guilty to two charges of capital murder.

Soon after the pregnant woman was reported missing in December, Modesto Police Chief Roy Wasden said detectives believed a brown van some residents described belonged to a landscaping crew.

Another vehicle seen by witnesses

But witnesses also described another type of vehicle in the area.

Homer and Helen Maldonado described a yellowish-tan van with curtains and a chrome ladder on the back leading to a rooftop rack. They parked next to it briefly at a gas station in the Petersons' neighborhood on Christmas Eve, the day Laci Peterson disappeared.

After driving off, Homer Maldonado said he saw Laci Peterson walking her dog about a half-block away.

Having read in The Bee about a mysterious van reported near the Petersons' home, Alizaga's curiosity was piqued by one she saw May 28 while driving on Interstate 5 south of Crows Landing, she said.

"When you see something that looks so out of place, you go, 'Hmm, that's weird,'" Ali-zaga said.

She said she sped up to the dented, light-brown Chevrolet van until she and her husband, Jack, could see inside. They noted rubbish, including wrappers and used food containers. And they saw two men wearing what appeared to be stained T-shirts.

Excerpted......

[Reaganwuzthebest]

...knowing that maybe scaughty is indeed guilty of murdering Laci and Conner, that he get life, not death?

Maybe, if that's the case you can expect plea bargaining attempts right before the trial. They'll probably play it by ear for now, see what evidence comes out.

But then again, the evidence against OJ was overwhelming, and still they went forward and got him off. I'm just wondering if this celebrity lawyer is crazy enough to make the same attempt?

[runningbear]

might be, but OJ was a different case all together and LA DA was totally stupid in the way OJ case was handled....

[runningbear]

Subpoena served to Ladine asking details of Peterson wiretaps

Subpoena served to Ladine asking details of Peterson wiretaps

By JOHN COTÉ and GARTH STAPLEY
BEE STAFF WRITERS

Published: June 11, 2003, 06:01:50 AM PDT

Scott Peterson's attorneys on Tuesday took the extraordinary step of serving a Stanislaus County Superior Court judge with a subpoena, seeking testimony about wiretaps used in the investigation of Laci Peterson's death. Court Executive Officer Mike Tozzi said he accepted the subpoena on Judge Wray Ladine's behalf, then gave Ladine a copy. The judge likely will rely on legal advice from the state Administrative Office of the Courts, Tozzi said.

With Ladine's approval, authorities secretly intercepted the calls of the slain woman's husband, Scott Peterson, from Jan. 10 to April 18, when he was arrested in the deaths of his wife and unborn son. He faces the death penalty if convicted and has pleaded not guilty.

Peterson's attorneys want Ladine to testify about meetings with a prosecutor and an investigator, co-defense counsel Kirk McAllister said.

The meetings took place every three days as authorities monitored the phone calls, according to prosecution documents.

Defense attorneys were left with little choice but to sub-poena Ladine because a court reporter was not present at the conferences, McAllister said.

State laws require a court reporter to be present during all proceedings in a death penalty case so the record is preserved for appeal.

Prosecutors maintain that a case does not start until a criminal complaint is filed or a grand jury is convened. Neither of those had happened when the wiretap meetings took place.

Defense attorneys contend, though, that a court reporter should have been present during the meetings.

"In the spirit of the law, if not the letter, it seems consistent," McAllister said. "Everybody knew that at the conclusion this was going to be a death penalty investigation."

Ladine indicated at a Jan. 17 meeting that he was not comfortable with investigators spot-checking some calls between Peterson and his attorney, according to an affidavit filed by Steve Jacobson, the investigator who supervised the wiretaps.

Defense attorneys contend that prosecutors acted improp-erly when they monitored a call between Peterson and a private investigator and portions of two conversations between Peterson and McAllister.

Prosecutors said the three calls were recorded inadvert-ently. They maintain that investigators followed state and fed- eral law.

Judge Al Girolami, who is presiding over the criminal case against Peterson, has scheduled a June 26 hearing on the issue.

Lead defense counsel Mark Geragos said he wants to question Jacobson and prosecutor Rick Distaso under oath about the wiretaps.

The subpoena is not a public document until it is introduced into evidence at a future proceeding, Tozzi said.

State office now used

Although the Stanislaus county counsel's office used to represent judges caught up in legal wrangling, local courts about a year ago made a change in favor of using the state Administrative Office of the Courts, County Counsel Mick Krausnick said.

The Administrative Office of the Courts "will work with me providing legal representation to Judge Ladine," Tozzi said.

San Francisco Assistant District Attorney James Hammer, who has experience issuing subpoenas to judges, said the judge hearing the primary case often decides that another judge's testimony is not relevant to the central issue.

Hammer said seeking a wiretap is similar to seeking a search warrant: Investigators submit an affidavit laying out probable cause and then the judge approves it or not.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

That is true, if OJ had been tried anywhere else he probably would have been found guilty, something for Peterson and Geragos to keep in mind.

[runningbear]

yep, I believe the OJ case should of been Santa Monica, not LA... but you know LA's history.... ;o)

[RGSpincich]

"In the spirit of the law, if not the letter, it seems consistent," McAllister said. "Everybody knew that at the conclusion this was going to be a death penalty investigation."

Now there is some analytical thinking. Can't wait for a witness to get on the stand to testify against SP, "Everybody knows he did it." McAllister would have a fit and have the statement stricken.

[runningbear]

I'd say!....'o)