LAST PROSECUTION WITNESS

Townsend had one last witness, Sgt. William Harvey of the Oakland County Sheriff's Department, who took the stand at 11:30 Friday morning. The purpose of his testimony was to rebut MacDonell's suggestion that the shooting could have occurred on the bed, and to say that if it had, the crime scene had subsequently been tampered with.

Harvey, who had 21 years of service with the county, was in charge of its Special Investigations Unit, which handled most of the department's major crimes, including armed robberies, serial rapes and, of course, homicides. He had been an investigator since 1987 and testified that he'd been involved with upwards of one thousand investigations, had been the lead investigator in about a dozen cases and was secondary investigator 40 or 50 times. He also said he'd been qualified as a bloodspatter expert in one District Court trial and six or seven times in Circuit Court.

His training in bloodspatter evidence consisted of a seminar conducted by one of the leaders in the field, Dr. Stuart James, whom he'd met on a case; two training sessions in Florida that included several hours on bloodspatter; and other seminars that included "portions of bloodspatter, which are gone over and evaluated." He also used James's textbook on bloodspatter in investigations.

Harvey began his testimony by saying that if Leann had fired the gun while sitting on the bed, the gun should have kicked back to the other side of the room, away from where police found it, next to her extended arm, on the floor, though he acknowledged "there are obviously variables; it could have bounced on carpeting or whatever, but I would have expected it to be in this general vicinity."

Before Townsend could proceed, Legghio interrupted. "Your Honor, excuse me. I believe he's asking the witness opinions and yet he's not been qualified."

Townsend then moved to have Harvey qualified as an expert witness in bloodspatter analysis. Legghio asked to voir dire, that is, to more fully explore Harvey's background before agreeing to his status as an expert.

Whether it was the stress of a long trial, or the residual emotions from the drama of the 911 tape, Legghio was hardly the placid gentleman he'd been for most of the proceedings. He was brutal and dismissive, disdain dripping from his voice as he conducted his voir dire.

"Do you think that physics at all plays a role in bloodspatter evidence?" Legghio asked.

"All the rules you follow—basically, these investigations, these experimentations, have already been conducted by scientists. By no means am I a scientist, I'm a criminal investigator. The ground rules, the math, that is already done. You have your procedures to know that the blood droplet comes out as a sphere, not as a teardrop, this has all been established by the scientists. So basically, to do bloodspatter, you'd don't have to have nuclear or astrophysics, you don't have to have advanced degrees … There are rules you follow through the textbooks, such as all droplets are circular when they hit, spines indicate direction, things like that. It's not rocket science, it is just recognition/interpretation."

"I'm not asking you whether or not you read astrophysicists' books and mechanical engineering and engineering mechanics, what I'm asking you is, Do you believe that the law of physics applies to blood stains and the flight of blood?"

Legghio was anticipating a defense by Harvey against claims that Leann couldn't have been shot on the floor, that laws of physics in that scenario could not account for the blood on the bedspread. He was using the voir dire to get in some early cross-examination.

"Yes. I do."

"Can you tell the members of the jury how many college-level physics courses you have had?"

"Absolutely none."

"How many college-level chemistry classes have you had?" "One."

Legghio hit him with a curve.

"Can you tell me, what is sine? I don't mean a stop sign."

"Mathematically—you mean s-y-n?—it's a mathematical formula." "For…?"

"I use it off of…"

"How do you spell it, by the way?"

"I don't know. I'd have to look in my adding machine or whatever."

An adding machine or whatever? Legghio couldn't have written the script any better. The reference to sine and upcoming references to cosine and tangents referred to MacDonell's explanation earlier that bloodspatter experts use the rules of trigonometry to help fit the bloody pieces of the murder-scene puzzle together.

"Why would you go to an adding machine?" said Legghio, straightfaced. "What do you use that for?"

"It's got the sine on it already?"

The engineers on the jury were chuckling inwardly. It would be difficult, indeed, for this expert to redeem himself in their eyes.

"What about cosine?" "Don't know." "What is cosine?" "Don't know."

"Well, what about tangent? What's the tangent? What is a tangent?" "I'd have to go back to the textbooks. I don't recall."

"So, let me see if I understand this. Are you able to give the members of the jury a brief, yet articulate definition of the word 'sine'?"

"No."

"And not for cosine?" "No."

"How about tangent?" "No."

"Now, have you taken any elevated mathematics courses at the college level?"

"No. My college is in criminal justice."

"How about serology? Do you have any kind of background in blood? The

viscosity of blood? The surface tension of blood?"

"No training other than my dealings with serologists."

Legghio held up the textbook written by James, and Harvey acknowledged it was his guide book.

"Did you know that Professor MacDonell trained Dr. James?" "I know they worked together."

"Did you know that book you studied from has a statement that says, 'Special recognition is given to Professor Herbert Leon MacDonell, a renowned criminologist of Corning, New York'?"

Townsend objected, way too late. "I understand maybe this is for cross- examination but I thought this was voir dire."

"All right, I'll reserve," said Legghio.

"Other than the courses you took, have you had any other type of formalized bloodspatter interpretation or analysis?"

"No."

"I would object to this witness's qualifications, Your Honor."

Townsend asked Harvey how many hands-on cases he had been involved with in bloodspatter. Harvey said it was "fifty, sixty, maybe a hundred."

And how did Harvey assist other agencies or police departments? "What I do is slightly different than what Lt. Woodford does. Being a crime-lab technician, he goes in and measures the scene, he does the measurement of angles, the re- creations, the elastic strings. I go in and interpret the stains that exist and attempt to re-create what occurred in there, both through the photographs and the blood on the floor."

Townsend asked Cooper to grant Harvey expert status. Legghio said he didn't have the proper background.

"The sergeant has specialized knowledge that may aid and assist the jury in the determination of fact," said Cooper. "To the extent that he does not have a background in mathematics or physics goes to the weight and not to his qualifications to aid and assist the jury. He has hands-on experience and that may aid and assist the jury with regard to his determinations."

And so they continued. Harvey was in.

Townsend asked him about the photos MacDonell had taken of a model in a seated position on a bed. Harvey said that if Leann had been shot in this fashion, with the gun in her right hand when it went off, high-velocity blood mist should have sprayed out to the right. And that blood should instantly have started pouring out her nasal passages or wound. "There should be a blood trail from here over to the final resting spot."

"Do you see any?" said Townsend, referring to actual photos of the scene. "No. This is one of the problem areas." Cooper asked him to move over in

front of the jury so they could see the photos better. "The blood trail starts in this diamond of this pattern right here and continues across. There's your final resting spot within that general vicinity and that's where you have this mass amount of blood. This is called pooling blood, where the blood just leaches out from the body. But you can see the blood trail starting here and it continues right along to where Leann is lying down. This is what bothered me when I first saw the crime-scene photographs. If she was over here, this bleeding should not occur. Bleeding is going to be immediate, it should start immediately and continue to the final resting area. There should be no breaks. No void areas. In this case, there is an obvious void area."

Harvey also said that photos of the scene showed blood under where the gun had been when police arrived, and that the area beneath the gun should be void of blood. And that he disagreed with MacDonell that the blood could get there normally as a result of being projected from the body faster than the gun would fall by force of gravity. "It has been my training and my understanding that when the brain stem is severed, there is no pumping of blood, the blood is not going to come out with any velocity. So, I don't see how the blood droplets could get there before the gun."

Townsend asked Harvey if it's proper for police to try to fit evidence to a theory and Harvey said that, no, the proper thing to do is go into a crime scene with an open mind and let the evidence shape the theory. And that one should never throw out evidence just because it doesn't fit a theory.

Townsend had no further questions.

Legghio attacked Harvey with the same vigor he'd displayed earlier. He

asked about a crime tape both he and MacDonell had alluded to, one of a man shooting himself in the mouth with a .357 Magnum before live cameras, a tape that has become a standard teaching tool at police seminars.

"You said the blood gushes out immediately?" "Yes."

"Because that's how you said that there would be this trail, right?" "Should be, yes."

"But then just a minute ago you said that blood doesn't pump out quickly after a shot in the head, did I understand?"

"From the pressure of the nasal passages, when they let go inside the pressure within a controlled closed area like the cranium, that's going to come out quickly."

"You indicated to Mr. Townsend that you were asked by him last summer, 1999, to look at these photos and autopsies?"

"That's correct."

"Did you write any reports back then of the things you did?" "No, I didn't."

"But you did author a report on June 6th, 2000?" "That's correct."

"Is this report based on something you did recently?"

"This is based on my examination prior to [Fletcher's pretrial exam in September of 1999] and my consultation, my examination with the evidence and with the other investigators right up until the 6th."

"Have you been to the crime scene?" "No, I have not."

"Am I to understand correctly, you looked at the crime-scene photographs and you used a magnifying glass?"

"No, actually what I used is a fingerprint loupe." He pulled it out and showed the jury.

Legghio asked him if he knew that medical technicians had touched the body upon their arrival? He did. That blood smudges and fingerprints showed she'd been touched on both arms? He did. And that Fletcher claimed to have at least

touched the body? Maybe moved it a bit?

Legghio then asked if he agreed with testimony by Dr. Besant–Matthews that when the brain stem was severed, "there would be a complete loss of muscle control and the body would drop like a sack of potatoes, so to speak?"

"Should be, yes."

Legghio showed him Defendant's Exhibit GG, the one showing a big blood stain on the bed.

"Now, if Mrs. Fletcher were kneeling on all fours, 14 inches off the ground there, and if she went down when she was shot and dropped straight down … if she is shot next to the bed and her head is way over past the computer stand with feet [partially] under the bed, how does her body, if it dropped like a sack of potatoes, make contact with the bed?"

"I don't know what energy or how much force she hit that side of the bed. I don't know whether she bounced, I have no idea. All I know is the blood trail starts here and she ends there. How she gets there, I don't know if I can testify to that."

"You indicated, I believe, that you find it suspicious that the gun and the magazine have blood below them?"

"If you take it in its totality, they have blood below them and they have blood on top of them. Combining the two, yes, I do."

"Now, did you realize the report Mr. Woodford prepared said that the blood on top of the gun—in addition to high-velocity blowback spatter, there was also a portion of the gun that had a contact stain?"

"Correct. I believe it's near the ejection port."

"And did you, when looking at the form of Mrs. Fletcher, note that there appeared to be a contact blood stain nearly parallel or perfectly aligned with the firearm were she to be lying on top of it before being rolled off?"

"Show me the photograph."

"I will. Showing you what has been marked Exhibit E and have you take a look at that, do you see a blood stain on her forearm, a more pronounced blood stain further down from the wrist?"

"Yes, I do. I see the stain, yes."

"Now that stain aligns with the contact stain, I would suggest to you, on the firearm immediately adjacent to that stain, would you agree?"

"If you rolled her over, it would be in the same vicinity, yes. Whether it's a mirror image, I can't tell."

"Thank you, sir. I have no further questions." "I have no redirect," said Townsend.

"Thank you. You may step down," said Cooper.

"I'm sorry, Your Honor. I do. I forgot," said Townsend.

He asked Harvey if he could see a void area in Leann's hands. It was a question they'd clearly rehearsed, for Harvey was ready with an answer and an explanation of a void's importance. There should be a large area on a victim's hand void of any sign of blowback high-velocity blood because the gun would block the mist from hitting the hand. But he could not see any such void area in the crime-scene photos.

At 12:30, Harvey stepped down. He certainly hadn't been the decisive rebuttal witness Townsend had hoped for. His training seemed thin, and his testimony about sines, cosines and having to check his adding machine had given observers one of the few lighter moments in the trial. There was also the irony, duly noted by jurors, of his eagerness to testify solely based on looking at photos, while Woodford had made such a show of just the opposite.

"That was priceless," John Fletcher would later say to his wife of Harvey's performance.

Legghio had put more doubt in the jury's minds—not that they needed any, they would say later—about the credibility of the prosecution witnesses. He hadn't been to the crime scene, he hadn't written up his report for some six months, until just before the trial, and he'd made what might turn out to be an important acknowledgment—that there seemed to be matching stains on the gun and Leann's arms. If her body had rolled over the gun after it fell beneath her, the prosecution couldn't be right about the need for Mick to grab it from the other side of the room and plant it next to her before police arrived.

It had been a good morning for Legghio, he was certain of that.