PROSECUTION DAY 5

Day 5 began with an inadvertent shock. There was a problem getting the power- point equipment to work, and Legghio and Hendricks began to fiddle with it for a while. Suddenly, without warning, there on the screen larger than life was a picture—it had accidentally slid in front of the projector and when it came on there it was in full view—of Leann, naked from the waist down.

She was wearing a red tank top. Her left arm was splayed. Her belly, drained of blood, was an unreal white.

Loud gasps.

"Hey!" someone screamed. "Jesus!"

"Turn that off."

Those who had been chatting quietly turned their heads to see what was causing the ruckus. Legghio turned the machine off.

Five minutes later, at 9:16 a.m., the jury was brought in and Townsend's direct examination of Woodford continued.

Woodford said that blood mist is usually found within three or four feet of the impact site. Could someone get blood mist on their shirt if they were in another room? "Impossible."

Townsend had Woodford show the jury Fletcher's green Oxford shirt. Woodford told them he had placed straight pins at the various spots he detected blood mist. The right sleeve seemed filled with straight pins sticking out. He said the shirt tested positive for blood, that he had given it a visual examination first, then looked at it under a stereo microscope.

"I started noticing fine, almost microscopic particles that appeared to be blood," he said.

He then showed on the power-point several shots of the shirt under high

degrees of magnification. The first showed cotton fibers, but no blood was discernible. The second shot showed barely visible bits of red. The third showed clear red dots. Woodford said they were about 1/10th of a millimeter in size and were in a one-eighth-inch–square section of the right cuff.

Woodford said that the dots had penetrated the fibers and "that, to me, is a high-velocity bloodspatter. The blood on that cuff had to come from it being very close to Leann Fletcher when she was shot."

His power-point demonstration ended at 9:28. He then told the jury that there was other blood on the shirt, a big contact stain under the button, and that he had submitted the shirt for DNA analysis, along with various other pieces of evidence, including blood samples from both Leann and Mick, blood from Fletcher's tie and blood from the gun.

The testimony appeared quite powerful. Legghio would soon prove that under the glare of a powerful cross-examination, appearances aren't always what they seem.

*

Legghio began his grilling of Woodford at 9:35. He asked him how many courses he'd had in bloodstain analysis. Two, one in the late 1980s, one in 1994.

None since? "No."

He got Woodford to acknowledge that he had cut a bloodstain off a book and preserved it when he was first at the scene, thinking it was cast-off blood of some significance. But that two weeks before trial he had determined that the drop in question was actually a "gravity drop," and that it wouldn't help indicate where Leann had been shot.

Legghio read from a report Woodford had filed saying he'd gotten Fletcher's clothes at 2:15 p.m. on August 16, but pointed out that that date had to be an impossibility, because the initial state police involvement didn't occur until 7:30

p.m. the night of the shooting.

He also got Woodford to confirm that in one report he had written, there was blood mist on the mirror in the bedroom, that there appeared to be a contact stain on the bed, which was about four to five inches above Leann's head and about

10 inches to the left from where Woodford determined she'd been shot.

Woodford acknowledged he'd never mentioned that contact stain in any of his reports but said it was his conclusion that her head had gone up and over upon being shot. (This was a crucial conclusion and one the jury would determine was wrong; it would help them decide she had, in fact, not been shot on the floor as the prosecution insisted.)

"Didn't you think it was worth putting in a report?" Legghio asked, rhetorically, about the blood stain on the floral comforter on the bed.

Legghio then said there were 14 drops of blood near the comforter and asked if he put in his report any theory of how they got there.

"No."

"How did those gravity drops get there?"

"I don't know. You can't know how every drop gets there."

They recessed at 10:35. When they came back into session at 11:04, things would get even rougher for Townsend's forensic expert. Legghio referred to a report Woodford wrote on November 29, 1999, which included a detailed diagram of the Smith & Wesson, complete with sketches of various blood stains. "You drew pictures of the bloodspatter on the gun but you didn't take a

photo of it?" "Correct."

"Even though you took photos through a microscope of other blood stains?" "Yes."

"You said the gun had high-velocity blowback bloodspatter on it. Did you take any photos of it?"

"No. I don't take photographs of every single piece of evidence that comes into the lab," said Woodford. He was getting red of face and angry. He was a violin that Legghio was about to play in earnest.

The defense attorney made a segue to the vaginal swabs and Woodford's contention that the sperm was fresh, which fit with the prosecution's theory that Leann was shot just after finishing the act of sex.

"What does 'fresh' mean?"

It meant, said Woodford, that it had been deposited within 72 hours.

"Can you give a guess how old the sperm was you saw?" "No."

And then a segue back to the blood on the shirt. With each tack, Woodford got more flustered.

Legghio asked about a report Woodford had written on September 15 about lab work done on Fletcher's shirt on September 4. It mentioned two small high- velocity blood stains on the right cuff, which he saw after looking through a stereoscope, and a contact stain about the size of a dime, also on the cuff.

But, Woodford acknowledged, that report didn't mention any of the numerous stains he now claimed to have seen and had marked with straight pins.

With that thought hanging, it was lunch time.

*

The jury came back in at 2:20 p.m.

The Misener family and friends were warned there would be some graphic photos shown on the projector and were told they could go down the hall to the media room and listen to a feed of the proceedings without having to sit through shots of Leann.

No one made a move. Townsend came over to and knelt by Jack and Gloria Misener and whispered something. They got up and left the room. Two of Leann's sisters followed. Two men got up and followed them out.

The "20/20" cameraman screwed his lens toward the projector screen. The press photographers took aim.

Judge Cooper warned the jury to brace themselves.

Legghio asked Woodford if he had found blood on the underside of one of Leann's white cotton socks. He had. How could he account for that if, according to his theory, she was shot while on her hands and knees? He couldn't.

Then Leann Fletcher's body came into view. It was a close-up of her from the waist down, taken at autopsy. Briefly her pubic triangle was visible but Legghio quickly covered that part of the photo with a yellow Post-it. There were two types of blood smears on her upper left leg, a lighter smear, and darker drips that seemed to have been running down her thigh. Woodford said the lighter

blood appeared to be a swipe pattern, where blood had been wiped by another surface.

"How would you describe that blood?" asked Legghio, referring to what appeared to be darker drips. These drips, if that's what they were, were crucial to the defense. If Leann had been on her hands and knees when shot, how could so much blood have dripped onto the front of her thigh?

"I wouldn't even try to attempt to make a judgment off of a photograph," said Woodford.

"This blood here—would you agree it appears to be going down her leg?" "Again, I wouldn't even try to hedge a comment on that."

"Well, let's take a look at this one. Does that not look as though it may have been some sort of a river type of action, generating or gravitating downward?"

"Again, you're getting into an area that I would feel totally uncomfortable testifying to."

"You've been qualified as a forensic bloodstain-evidence expert. Can you provide the jury any assistance on what that blood stain on her leg either looks like, how it might have been generated, which way the blood may have flowed

—can you give us any assistance at all?"

"Unless I was actually at the autopsy of Leann Fletcher, unless I saw her whole body in totality where I could get a good look at different types of patterns and the way the body was and everything else, I cannot in good faith testify off a photograph."

"Ever?" said Legghio, drawing the word out, dripping disdain. "Are you saying that you can never look at bloodstain-pattern evidence and in good faith provide an opinion?"

"I don't feel comfortable doing it, so I will not," said Woodford. He was getting angry, his face flushed.

"My question is, are you saying never, you will not ever look at bloodstain evidence in a photographic reproduction and provide an opinion?" Legghio appeared genuinely surprised at the witness's truculence.

"I don't feel comfortable testifying off a photograph and I will not do that." Woodford was fully red-faced now, flustered, even angry.

"Ever?"

"In this case I will not do that."

"So you're basically unwilling to provide any information on this blood stain, whether the blood flowed down the leg, whether the blood flowed up the leg, where it generated, any information whatsoever?"

Legghio put another picture up, of the crime scene. Leann's leg was aimed toward the bed, with half her right foot disappearing beneath it. Blood was visible on her leg. Legghio asked if it appeared to be bloodspatter.

"Honestly, I cannot tell."

"You're not willing to render an opinion whether or not that appears to be bloodspatter?" asked Legghio, sure now what the answer would be, but feigning incredulity.

"Again, I wasn't there when Leann was present, so I cannot render an opinion if that's even what that is."

Townsend tried to mend the damage on redirect. He asked about the semen in Leann's vagina. Woodford characterized it as "extremely fresh." And could the stain in Fletcher's pants have been deposited there just before the shooting? "That would be consistent with my findings."

Ironically—the jury would note the irony and comment on it later— Townsend asked Woodford about the very photo he had refused further comment on moments earlier. He asked about the stain that had been characterized as a swipe and asked how it could occur. This time, Woodford had a clear, firm opinion. "A swipe occurs when you have blood on an object and you touch an unstained portion of that object. It's a transfer or contact stain."

"Or something or somebody had blood on it and then touched that leg?" asked Townsend. The implication was: If Fletcher had blood on him and touched her leg, could that stain result?

"Yes."

"Do you know how much would have been on that individual?" "There had to have been enough to leave that big of a stain."

Woodford then asked him to comment on three other autopsy photos that showed blood stains on Leann's arms. "Again, I don't feel comfortable testifying

off a photograph, but it appears to be some sort of a contact stain."

And what was his opinion about where Leann was shot? "I believe Leann Fletcher was shot while she was facing the computer stand while she was on her hands and knees."

Legghio resumed his cross.

Was Woodford aware that the medical examiner had found no abrasions on Leann's hands or knees? "I was not aware of that."

Was he aware her brain stem had been severed? Yes. And that in the event of a severed brain stem, the victim loses all muscle control? Yes.

He gave Wooodford two photos.

"If it is your theory that Leann Fletcher was on her hands and her knees, why doesn't she drop down here? Why is she way over here, probably perhaps as much as three feet away from that bed?"

"She was moved."

"Now, when the bullet hits the head, though, isn't there immediately an eruption of blood? Wouldn't there be a trail of blood that drips from where she was moved?"

"I don't know."

"How did her foot get under the bed?"

"I don't know. Again, I am contending that she was on her hands and her feet in front of the computer stand when she was shot. She was shot in the right ear. The left ear hit the comforter, she fell over."

"Is it your testimony that the bullet moved her entire body, while on her hands and knees, more than nine and a half inches, throwing her onto the bed, the force of a single bullet?"

"Yes, from a .45."

"Have you done any experiments with the force of a single bullet into a human body?"

"No."

"Have you ever shot a deer?" "No."

"Have you ever been hunting with someone who shot a deer?"

"No."

"Have you ever been present when a bullet has gone into a live body, whether it's a deer, an elk, a moose, a human?"

"No."

"It's safe to say you don't have any expert forensic experience at all about what kind of energy it takes to move a body by virtue of one bullet?" asked Legghio dismissively.

It would prove to be an important line of questioning. Doctor Dragovic would describe Legghio as a master after the trial, and this was one of the heights of his mastery. Woodford, with no forensic experience involving the force a bullet exerts, had articulated what was at the center of the prosecution theory of events—Leann was on the floor, on her hands and knees. It fit Woodford's theory of the blood evidence, and it fit Townsend's theory of Fletcher as sexual sadist/murderer. Legghio's own witnesses would be able to prove conclusively, to the jury's satisfaction, at least, that Woodford's theory was an impossibility.

Legghio went back to the photo they'd gone round and round on earlier, the one Townsend was able to elicit comment about.

"Isn't it possible, Mr. Woodford, that if Mrs. Fletcher is up here where your head is, and she received a shot, that the blood might drip down onto her leg? Is that possible?"

"I don't think so."

"Based upon your forensic expert opinion, what would have contact with her to cause that kind of stain?"

"Again, I am not going to testify off a photograph."

He was done. It was 3:25. Townsend would say after the trial that he thought Woodford had been a good witness. The jury disagreed. In fact, it is hard to overstate the antipathy he created.

"Here was a guy who was actually getting upset on the stand," said jury foreman Rob Jensen after the trial. "You're a prosecution witness and you're getting upset? You're supposed to get on the stand and say what you think. He was refusing to testify off photographs for the defense but he'd testify off photos

for the prosecution? There were people on the jury who literally were very aggressively hating this guy. They didn't like this guy at all.

"It seemed to me the witnesses were tailoring their testimony to meet whatever went against their case. I mean, I could have looked at the damn photo and said there was a drop of blood there. When he acted like that, it made it look as if he had something to hide. It created a lot of animosity with the jury. People got angry. It annoyed people."

"Animosity," "angry," "annoyed," "tailoring testimony"—hardly ideas and phrases your star forensic witness is supposed to leave in the minds of the jury. What began with Cleyman's assertion of "stone-cold certain" had continued through Woodford's anger and intransigence—the common mind that the jury was evolving would very much distrust and discredit the prosecution witnesses, right on through jury deliberations.

Their credibility was pretty much destroyed in the jury's mind, and Legghio had yet to put on a defense. "It was an example of how an artful defense attorney can corner a witness," Dr. Dragovic would say later, having successfully escaped being cornered by the best of them.

In the strong words of Jensen: "The prosecution witnesses were so obviously biased, you couldn't believe a word they said."

*

Lynne Helton, a supervisor and biologist with the state police crime lab in Northville was the last witness of the day. She told Townsend she'd been with the police 15 years, had a master's degree in chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh, oversaw a staff of four and had testified in court more than 100 times.

In voir dire, she acknowledged to Legghio that she had no academic training in DNA analysis, and had never done any research or published any papers or books on DNA.

Her lab identified Fletcher as the donor of the semen in Leann's vagina and found a mixture of Fletcher's and Leann's DNA on his tie. As for the green Oxford shirt he'd been wearing—the one the media had trumpeted many months

earlier as being, metaphorically, the smoking gun because of what police and prosecutors said was the telltale blood mist on the sleeve—she cut pieces from the cuff and tested them. The test showed positive for human DNA, but didn't match Leann's or Mick's profile.

Why? "I don't know why that would be the case. It was insufficient DNA to get a type, or perhaps the DNA was degraded."

She tried two other samples but they were extremely small and there wasn't enough blood there to generate a profile.

It was 4 p.m. Time to adjourn.