Blood Secrets: Chronicles of a Crime Scene Reconstructionist (31 page)

Ruth stuck to her story. Any blood, she said, came from her own nosebleeds or the injuries Rolf had inflicted over the years. Since there was no body, it would be a challenging case to make, particularly with the department’s scant resources. So the San Juan County Prosecutor’s Office tapped the attorney general’s brilliant team of Bob Keppel and Greg Canova, with whom I worked earlier on the Donna Howard “horse kick” case. As you will recall from the Howard case, Keppel and Canova had been appointed to a special unit designated to help local prosecutors with criminal cases when their offices were under-staffed or their resources fell short.

Investigations continued, and in March 1983, Ruth Neslund was formally charged with first-degree murder in connection with her vanished husband. The case would be plagued by countless delays stemming from motions filed by Ruth’s lawyers and from her own failing health. During jury selection, she had to be put in intensive care for high blood pressure and suffered delirium tremens from alcohol withdrawal before her release. Ruth’s case eventually went to trial in November 1985. By then, her brother Robert was living in a nursing home and suffering from senility. He was never charged in connection with Rolf Neslund’s murder.

Canova and Keppel asked me to consult on the evidence and give an analysis of what the bloodstains indicated. So I read all the documents from the investigation to date and visited the Neslund home. The droplets of human blood on the ceiling were indeed consistent with a gunshot wound, particularly with the larger, heavier drops that travel farther than the bloody mist in high-velocity impact spatter. And enough of them were visible to conclude that whoever had been shot had been seriously injured or killed. Even though Rolf’s body
was nowhere to be found, it looked as though he had left a good deal of his blood at home.

The trial lasted over a month and the jury deliberated for four days before finding Ruth Neslund guilty of the murder of her husband, Rolf. She was sentenced to twenty years to life in prison. She was released while her case was on appeal. But after she got behind the wheel of her van under the influence of alcohol and seriously injured two bicyclists, the judge ordered her to begin serving her sentence. She died in prison of a pulmonary blood clot in 1993 at age seventy-three, still protesting her innocence, still claiming her seafaring husband had sailed off into the sunset somewhere. Rolf Neslund’s remains have never been found.

“M
R. ENGLERT
,”
THE DEFENSE
attorney began, taking a step forward and regarding me shrewdly, “isn’t it true that you once got an F in a high school algebra class?”

“Yes, I did,” I replied. “And I was lucky to get it.”

A few chuckles emanated from the jury box.

The stern-faced, smartly dressed woman was taken aback but recovered in a flash. “Do you find this funny?” she demanded. “A man’s life is at stake.”

“No, ma’am,” I said. “I don’t find it funny.”

“Yet clearly you enjoy getting a response from the jury. You like people.”

“Yes, ma’am, I do like people. I even like you.”

This time, full-fledged laughter erupted from several jurors.

The lawyer’s eyes narrowed and her skin deepened to an apoplectic red. This was a high-profile multiple-murder case and she had a lot at stake. She wasn’t going to be lampooned by an expert witness whom she fervently wanted the jury to dismiss as a “hired gun.”

“Don’t you think your struggle with simple high school algebra calls your credibility on mathematical and scientific matters into question?!”

“No, ma’am. It has no bearing on my analysis of the blood evidence in this case.”

I wasn’t trying to be glib in the courtroom that day. In fact, I admired the defense attorney for doing her homework. She and her colleagues must have gone to some trouble to dredge up my old transcripts from forty-odd years ago in San Angelo. But by the time she went in for the kill in this particular midwest trial, I had already endured so many character assassination attempts on the witness stand that my skin had thickened. If I hadn’t learned to deflect the countless slings and arrows criminal lawyers hurl at me whenever I testify as an authority on blood patterns, I would have crawled off to nurse my wounds long ago.

During my years as a police officer, I took the witness stand many times to explain ordinary actions taken in the line of duty. But nothing could have prepared me for going into court to give expert testimony. As a law officer, even jurors who claim to hate cops automatically view you as an authority figure. They assume you know what you’re talking about. They listen to you. As an expert witness, you start from scratch. You have to build credibility. The only way to earn the jury’s respect is to prove that you know your subject matter.

That’s not easy when opposing counsel is deliberately trying to humiliate and discredit you. The first time a lawyer hissed in my ear,
“I’m going to destroy you,” it knocked me off balance. The first time one struck up a casual conversation in a corridor, then turned on me in court like a striking rattlesnake spewing venom, I was stunned. I once had a lawyer step resolutely into my path, staring me down and blocking my way to the courtroom until he was certain that I had seen his tie. It was covered with circling sharks.

The symbolism wasn’t far off. There are courtroom attorneys out there every bit as ruthless and cutthroat as the criminals, especially when they know their case hinges on a jury’s decision to trust or doubt what I say about blood evidence. But by now I’ve heard almost every threat they can conjure up. I’ve been told I’ll never work in this business again, never eat lunch in this town again, never show my face in public again, more times than I can count. I’m used to it.

I know brilliant, ethical lawyers who ask for no more than an honest analysis of evidence to help them give their clients the best defense possible. But I have also met my share of scoundrels. If my analysis of the blood spatter in a crime scene doesn’t work in their favor, they are not above pleading, “Can’t you come up with anything better than that for me?”

One memorable experience began a few years ago on my birthday, of all days. The phone rang and, assuming it was a well-wisher, I answered. Instead it was a defense attorney whose name I recognized instantly. He specialized in high-flying power players as clients. I had met him during previous celebrity cases, though we had never been on the same side.

“Rod,” he said, “I really need your input on this one. Will you write me a report?”

I was instantly on guard. “I would have to come down and look at the evidence first,” I said.

“Great. We’ll arrange it.”

“Are you really planning to use me on this?” I asked.

“Absolutely.”

“You’re not just trying to make sure I’m off-limits for the other side, are you?”

“Rod,” he said smoothly, a note of hurt indignation in his voice, “how could you even suggest that? My client and I would simply like you to analyze the evidence in his case and let us know what you think.”

A few days later, a check signed by the well-known personality in question arrived. I called the lawyer to say that I had received it and to firm up plans for me to examine the evidence. I was surprised when I didn’t hear back from him, so I called several more times and left additional messages. No response.

About a week went by before I received a call from the prosecutor in the same highly publicized case. “I think the blood evidence in this case is pretty strong,” he said. “Would you be willing to take a look at it and give me an opinion?”

“I can’t,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’ve already been retained by the defense.”

He seemed surprised, but he thanked me politely and hung up. It got me thinking about the case again, so I decided to do a little research online. A newspaper article popped up touting the fact that the celebrity and his attorney had recently met with their team of expert witnesses in preparation for the upcoming trial.

I should’ve known. The attorney did precisely what he’d vowed not to do. He knew he couldn’t pay me off, so he “hired” me simply to take me out of the game. He had no intention of showing me the evidence. He didn’t want my opinion on it in the first place. He just wanted to ensure that opposing counsel didn’t hear my opinions. And his client was rich enough to shell out fees simply to keep me out of the picture. In a way, it was flattering.

Of course, neither side has the monopoly on questionable tactics.
I ran into one egregious example of unscrupulous behavior in a case that had nothing to do with murder. It occurred because a woman started hemorrhaging suddenly and called 911. She lost a lot of blood even before the ambulance arrived, and she nearly died en route to the emergency room, partly because she refused to let the EMTs take her to the nearest hospital. She was bent on going to a different one all the way across town. After her recovery, she sued the hospital and the emergency services company that transported her.

I was asked to consult on the case for the defense. The experience had obviously been harrowing for everyone involved, and the woman had been lucky to recover. Still, something about the photos of the blood-soaked mattress in her bedroom looked wrong.

“I can’t make a definitive assessment from these images,” I told my clients. “I need to examine the mattress itself.”

They requested it, but the plaintiff’s team was adamant. “Absolutely not,” was the answer. “It’s not available. And there will be no DNA testing, either.”

That was odd. Why should the woman’s lawyers oppose DNA testing?

My clients pressed and prodded and appealed to the judge to grant me access to the evidence. At last I was permitted to view the mattress in the woman’s home, though opposing counsel showed up literally shouting, screaming, and trying physically to bar us from the premises. The minute I saw the mattress I understood why. There was too much blood. No one could bleed like that and live. Someone had poured an enormous amount of additional blood or another reddish liquid onto the already stained sheets to make the effect more dramatic for jurors in the courtroom.

To test my conclusion, I removed plugs—sample cross sections of the sheets, blankets, and mattress—and showed them to Dr. Grimsbo in
Portland, along with photographs of the bed. We conducted a number of experiments to find out how much liquid had gone into the mattress and bedding. We kept pouring and pouring, but we still weren’t matching the levels indicated in the plugs. We concluded that the amount of liquid in the mattress where the woman’s hemorrhaging began was well over the total amount of blood in the human body, which is about six quarts. In the end, my clients settled. No one ever determined how that amount of blood found its way into the mattress.

As shocked as I still am at what certain lawyers are capable of, I am equally astounded by some of the statements I have heard over the years from those sworn in as blood pattern interpretation specialists. It’s no wonder lawyers, judges, jurors, journalists, and even average citizens tend to be suspicious when “experts” take the witness stand.

I once heard an expert say with a straight face that he could not state beyond a reasonable doubt that high-velocity impact blood spatter was from a gunshot wound. “It could occur if someone dipped a toothbrush in wet blood and ran their finger across the bristles,” he explained. “That would create the same type of spray.”

Sure. But murderers don’t bother to dip toothbrushes in blood and decorate the walls. They’re too busy killing their victims.

In the state of Washington many years ago, there was a crime scene where a shooting had projected blood spatter onto the ground. I was asked to consult on the case and gave a report to the DA’s office stating that in my opinion, this was high-velocity blood spatter resulting from a gunshot wound. Another expert, who had been called in at the same time I was, told the DA’s office that my theory could be
right, but that the blood patterns in question could also have come from repeatedly dropping a bloody pencil.

“When the point hits the ground,” he theorized, “it would create dots like the ones in these photos.”

The entire notion flew in the face of logic. A murder had taken place in the room shown in the photographs. There was a dead body to prove it. The victim’s injuries indicated that he had been shot to death. And there were no bloody pencils lying around the crime scene. Pencils don’t come into play in murder scenes, unless a killer is jabbing somebody with one. In that instance, the jury agreed. The defendant was convicted.

Was the sole purpose of the pencil expert’s statement to throw doubt on the prosecution’s case? Did he sincerely believe a pencil was a plausible, possible cause of the blood spatter he was examining? Was he simply playing devil’s advocate and pointing out every conceivable hypothetical scenario for the sake of argument? If so, is that an ethical approach in a murder trial? Examples can be used to distort facts as well as to illuminate them. Ultimately, jurors have to sift through what they hear and decide for themselves. More than one panel has voted to acquit a defendant even when the blood evidence proved he was guilty just because an expert testified that blood-spattered clothing could have gotten that way from pencils, toothbrushes, and other innocuous sources.

I have been on scenes where people shot themselves. I have also been on scenes where people got shot and were breathing when I walked in, then stopped after I arrived. And I have been on scenes where I have been personally involved in shootings, though fortunately I have never had to kill anyone. Yet in all my decades of seeing dead and dying people and studying the bloodshed that violent crime generates, I have never, ever seen random house hold items inadvertently replicate medium-or high-velocity blood spatter around a victim.

I have tremendous respect for the scientific, academic side of forensics, but veteran cops and analysts with years of field experience balk at purely theoretical propositions. Crime is rooted in the real world. It doesn’t happen under lab conditions.