Experts examine remains

The Modesto Bee ^ | August 12, 2003 | John Cote'

[runningbear]

Experts examine remains

Members of the Scott Peterson defense team leave the criminalistics laboratory of the Contra Costa County coroner in Martinez after spending Monday morning examining the bodies of Laci Peterson and her unborn son. TED BENSON/THE BEE

Experts examine remains

By JOHN COTÉ
BEE STAFF WRITER

Published: August 12, 2003, 09:15:51 PM PDT

MARTINEZ -- Scott Peterson's attorneys and a pair of high-profile experts examined the remains of Laci Peterson and her unborn son Monday, looking for evidence to clear their client of double murder charges.

Eight members of the defense team, which now includes criminalist Dr. Henry Lee and forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht, were inside the coroner's facility here for about 2 1/2 hours. They later went to the Petersons' Covena Avenue home.

Attorney Mark Geragos said little about the substance of the examination when the defense team emerged from the Contra Costa County coroner's office at noon.

"There's not much that we can talk about obviously between the gag order (previously issued in the case) and just in deference to both the Peterson and the Rocha families," Geragos said. "Obviously Dr. Wecht and Dr. Lee have agreed to come on board and to help us in this matter."

Senior Deputy District Attorney Dave Harris, one of the prosecutors handling the case, and members of the Modesto Police Department oversaw the defense examination.

Lee, the former director of the Connecticut State Police Forensics Science Laboratory, was a defense expert in the O.J. Simpson murder trial. He testified regarding crime scene reconstruction, blood splatter interpretation and trace evidence.

Wecht, coroner of Allegheny County in Pennsylvania, is a renowned forensic pathologist.

"Both are thought of in their fields as the foremost experts," Geragos said. "Given the consequences in this case, and given, I think initially at least, some of the investigative things that were done, I think it was important to get the best people in the field."

Peterson, 30, is charged with two counts of murder in the deaths of his 27-year-old wife and unborn son. He could receive the death penalty if convicted.

Defense attorneys maintain police ignored other leads and focused on Peterson almost immediately after his wife was reported missing Christmas Eve. Her body and that of her unborn child were found separately in April along the east shore of San Francisco Bay, within four miles of the spot where Scott Peterson said he launched his boat Dec. 24 for a solo fishing trip.

Peterson was arrested near Torrey Pines Golf Course in La Jolla on April 18, the day DNA testing identified the bodies.

Autopsies were performed on the badly decomposed remains shortly after they were found just over a mile apart along the shoreline near Richmond.

In the face of massive media attention, Stanislaus County Superior Court Judge Al Girolami ordered those autopsy reports sealed, along with a host of other documents in the case. Death certificates were made public; however, no cause of death was listed.

Last month, Girolami granted a defense request to conduct its own examination of the bodies. On Friday he issued a ruling that laid out guidelines for the examination, including the use of photographs, videotape, X-rays and the removal of "reasonable" amounts of tissue and fluid samples.

The defense team was required to provide its own medical instruments, and the group brought in cases on wheels, a large brown paper bag and other items.

Defense experts routinely review autopsy findings in murder cases, and second autopsies are becoming increasingly frequent, said Dr. Michael Baden, a former New York City medical examiner, who has worked with both Lee and Wecht on other cases.

"Mistakes can be made, intentionally or unintentionally," Baden said. "It's always appropriate for the defense to review things. Suppose they come back and agree 100 percent with the prosecution. The defense may want to plea bargain."

Prosecutors are expected to reveal a substantial amount of their case at a preliminary hearing scheduled for Sept. 9. At the hearing's end, Girolami will determine if there is enough evidence to hold Peterson for trial.

Defense attorneys have asked to keep the hearing closed to the public, arguing the inevitable media attention would make it impossible to find a fair jury.

News organizations, including The Bee, are seeking to keep the hearing open, arguing that open proceedings guard against abuse by judges or prosecutors and other means, such as moving the trial and sequestering jurors, can ensure Peterson a fair trial.

Prosecutors want the hearing open but want television cameras barred from the courtroom.

On Monday, the defense filed paperwork saying an open........

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Attorney Matt Dalton, right, briefs forensic experts Drs. Henry Lee, left, and Cyril Wecht at the forensics lab in Ripon. DEBBIE NODA/THE BEE

This photo shows an interior wall of a concrete structure that has paintings on all sides. This and other artwork, below, are near where the bodies of Laci Peterson and her unborn child were found by the bay. DEBBIE NODA/THE BEE

Defense outlines cult theory

By JOHN COTÉ
and GARTH STAPLEY

Published: August 13, 2003, 05:14:27 AM PDT

Scott Peterson's defense team Tuesday briefed two forensic experts on a statanic cult theory, including paintings and artwork near San Francisco Bay and an experiment showing that the pregnant Laci Peterson's body could have been placed in the water at the art site. Attorney Matt Dalton, using a laptop computer, showed artwork that he said depicted ritualistic killings and occult practices, and said the artwork could be found near the end of a peninsula in the bay.

Dalton also said that the defense team placed weighted flotation devices in the water at the end of the peninsula, and they ended up in the Richmond Inner Harbor, not far from where Laci Peterson's body and that of her unborn son, Conner, came ashore in mid-April.

Scott Peterson is in Stanislaus County Jail, charged with both their murders.

Dalton gave the briefing to criminalist Dr. Henry Lee and forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht while the three waited to review prosecution evidence held at the state crime labora- tory in Ripon.

Tuesday afternoon, the bayside presented evidence of its own: more than a dozen paintings on plywood and scrap lumber mounted on wooden frames at what East Bay residents call The Bulb, the rounded point at the end of the peninsula that holds the Albany Waterfront Trail, an area popular with dog owners.

Some of the artwork features decapitation and devil figures. Many of the paintings portray sexual activity, and several show pregnant women.

But, if the defense is trying to link the painters to Peterson's death, "that's utterly ridiculous," said Bruce Rayburn, a member of an artist collective known as Sniff. "That's reaching for straws."

He said he and three friends painted much of The Bulb artwork over the past five years.

Rayburn, a 50-year-old general contractor, said Tuesday from his El Sobrante home: "We're regular guys with full-time jobs who go down there once a week on Saturday mornings with our families."

Rayburn said neither law enforcement nor defense investigators had contacted him about the paintings.

One shows a man with an ax beheading a man in a rowboat on a body of water; a topless woman kneels next to the beheaded man.

Another shows a devil figure beheading a well-dressed couple in a theater balcony. And another portrays three children, their umbilical cords attached, in a body of water as a giant octopus wraps its tentacles around a naked woman.

"This is all done in fun and games," Rayburn said. "We've had a lot of criticism by certain groups of people who are offended by some of the paintings. There's a lot of good themes going on, but if you're looking for something to criticize, you can find it."

On the inside of a concrete structure on the peninsula, Rayburn's group painted a goat-headed figure spearing a caged man as a demonic image lurks.

"We called the inside of that place hell, because that's what it was to paint," he said. "You had to lay on a board in a foot of water to paint it."

The Bulb for years was a landfill at the edge of the city of Al-bany. The dump closed, and the land evolved into an encampment for homeless people before becoming part of a plan for a waterfront park between Richmond and Emeryville.

Albany police Sgt. John Geissberger said he was not aware of any ritualistic activity at The Bulb -- but that does not mean that it has not occurred, he quickly added.

"There are things that happen that we never hear about," Geissberger said.

Karla LaVey, founder of the San Francisco-based First Sa-tanic Church, said the Peterson defense team was using the satanic tactic as an attempt to deflect blame on a misunderstood and unfairly vilified group.

"Satanism does not involve any type of sacrifice or ritualistic killing," LaVey said. "Satanism obviously is a subject people are ignorant of, and so they tend to be biased and prejudicial."

The experiment

Dalton, in his briefing with Lee and Wecht, said defense investigators experimented with flotation devices -- putting them in the water at the end of The Bulb, between Berkeley Marina and Point Isabel. The current then carried them away.

Laci Peterson's body was found at Point Isabel, and her son's body was found about a mile away in south Richmond.

Scott Peterson has told police that he launched his 14-foot aluminum boat from Berkeley Marina on Christmas Eve, then went fishing for sturgeon off Brooks Island.

He said his wife was gone when he returned home. Family members reported her missing at about 6 p.m.

Dalton, an attorney with lead defense counsel Mark Geragos' Los Angeles law firm, hinted at another possible defense strat-egy -- telling Lee and Wecht about a man accused ......

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From the Stanislaus County Sheriff's press release:

Superior Court, Stanislaus County August 11, 2003

Reply to Media Entities Opposition to Motion to Close Preliminary Hearing

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and

Superior Court, Stanislaus County August 8, 2003

DA's Motion to Conduct Venue Survey

[Devil_Anse]

I would dearly love to see Scott's lawyers get up there and argue that showing videotapes of their own client sitting there with Diane Sawyer, "explaining everything", would be unduly prejudicial! That would mark heights of absurdity hitherto unknown even to Geragos and Dalton.

[Scenic Sounds]

That would be funny. Of course, those kind of arguments are nearly always made outside the presence of the jury and often in writing. However, we can be sure that, in a case like this this, an objection for the record is going to be made in some form to just about anything that might be damaging.

[Kenny Bunk]

Whether Scott Peterson is the worst thing to hit the planet since Attila the Hun, or is as pure as Snow White, has nothing to do with it.

He has been tried and convicted in the media, where he, as a citizen, ain't supposed to be tried. Our challenge is to remove the media from pending criminal cases, as they do in Britain.

[Kenny Bunk]

Check out Son of Sam. NYC, not the left coast.

[Freedom2specul8]

"He sold his soul to Santa"

LOL!

[Devil_Anse]

Yeah. Wouldn't want the jurors breaking into raucous laughter as someone like Matt Dalton tells the court, "Your Honor, it would be unduly prejudicial to tell these people how the head was severed. It's obvious that they're too stupid to know that just because the head was severed in a horrible, gruesome way, doesn't mean OUR client did it!"