Prosecution rests in Turner trial, presents evidence linking safehouse to crime scene

The state rested its case against Desmond Turner today for the June 2006 murder of seven people,  including three children. There’s a good chance we may wrap up the whole thing by tomorrow. It was a long, arduous day, packed with with hours of forensic evidence testimony. Lots of science, lots of numbers.

Here are a few highlights I’ve managed to distill from today, which are actually quite fascinating:

The day opened with a cross-examination of the state’s DNA and blood analysis expert, David Smith, who testified yesterday that clothes found soaking in a house where Desmond Turner slept the night after the murders showed traces of Turner’s DNA on it — along with DNA from a second person that was undeterminable. In her cross examination, defense attorney Lorinda Youngcourt went to great lengths to point out that all DNA and blood tests from the various scenes associated with the crime were still inconclusive, and did not link Turner in any way to the scene of the crime.

Later, detective Leslie Vanbuskirk, who oversaw the police investigation, took the stand, basically summing up the investigation, establishing a timeline and the procedural details of how the case was pursued. It was an opportunity for Youngcourt, however, to get to the heart of the defense’s theory during cross-examination: namely by bringing up several pieces of testimony which seemed to indicate that Brandon Griffith and Aaron Swartz were involved with or stood to benefit from the commission of the robbery Turner is alleged to have intended.

Griffith apparently told police that he had made a deal with Turner to receive a cut of the score, in exchange for information about the money he believed was in the Mexican family’s house. He also told police that Aaron Swartz had, in fact, given Turner a roll of duct tape to bind the victims – a claim Swartz denied under oath last week — in exchange for a cut of the marijuana they thought was in the Albarran/Covarrubias home. Detective Vanbuskirk testified for prosecutors that she had decided there was no probable cause to search the homes of either of these young men. But Youngcourt made it clear the defense thinks that decision was misguided, and better left to a judge. The implication is that there was a broader conspiracy to at least commit the burglary, and that police should have pursued several other people around the neighborhood in connection with the murders. An adjunct implication could be that police were themselves involved in some sort of frame-job or cover-up.

By and large, however, it was a good day for the state. Prosecutors presented a letter confiscated from Turner while he was in prison, which included photos of Brandon Griffith, and indicated some sort of threat to Griffith’s life to the corrections officers who confiscated it. The implication is that it was a tacit admission of guilt, and that Turner wanted to get rid of the state’s key witness. Considering the house where the murders were committed was torched by Arsonists in August, 2008, it’s honestly not inconceivable that this was what Turner intended.

The state also produced its first and only bit of physical evidence linking the crime scene to the home where Turner is believed to have slept the night after the murders. Ballistics expert Michael Putzek testified that “tool markings” on one of the live rounds recovered from Turner’s crash pad  matched those on four of the spent casings found at the crime scene.  The other 19 spent casings found at the crime scene, though they did not bear conclusive markings to the same effect, were demonstrated to have been fired from the same gun that fired the four with the tool mark, and Putzek testified that it is reasonable to assume a gun won’t necessarily leave the same tool mark in the same place every time.

Which is a sort of complicated way of saying that, according to the testimony, bullets from both scenes were chambered in the same gun. The one at the crash pad was simply chambered and unloaded without having been fired.

[For the uninitiated, a “tool mark” is a scratch or impression made by the machinery of a gun on a bullet, e.g., the firing pin, chamber, shell extractor or magazine.]

Defense attorney Brent Westerfeld went as far as to imply that the ballistic evidence was fabricated, without actually stating it. He noted that none of the casings, when examined by a more senior ballistics expert not long after the crime, were found to bear the tool marks that link the two scenes. Those tool marks weren’t found until roughly May of 2008 – about two years after the date of the murders — when they were discovered by Putzek, who by then had replaced his former superior. Neither was it the first time Putzek had examined the evidence

Westerfeld also noted that Putzek’s initials were engraved on the casing (apparently a common identification procedure) right beside the tool marks in question back in July of 2007. Westerfeld drew attention to their proximity, and wondered aloud how Putzek could have possibly engraved his initials so close to the tool markings without having noticed them. The implication is that two ballistic experts could not have missed such marks on five separate casings unless: a.) through simple incompetence, or b.) because the marks were added in 2008 – after the state’s DNA and blood expert, David Smith, told prosecutors “It doesn’t look good,” in August, 2007.

Whether such a far-reaching conspiracy is likely is for the judge to determine. (And, supposing it were, that still doesn’t mean Turner didn’t do it.) That stated, it is not incumbent upon the defense to prove its theory. It only has to sow enough doubt to adequately destabilize the prosecution’s evidentiary platform.

The defense only expects its case to take up part of the day tomorrow, which surprises me somewhat, but Turner’s lawyers seem to feel they’ve pretty much already discredited the state’s case. Defense counsel wouldn’t specify whom they intend to call tomorrow, but Youngcourt said they only  intend to call four or five witnesses. Westerfeld told the judge they could be done as early as noon, with the afternoon left over for closing arguments tomorrow afternoon.

Judge Robert Altice has indicated he could have a decision within a few hours of the trial’s end, so we could conceivably get a decision by late tomorrow. I’d still put my money on wrapping things up early Friday.

On a side note, in yesterday’s post I wondered whether anyone would call Reyna Banegas to the stand, a witness who claims she saw three to five men leaving the scene of the crime. Word was the prosecution couldn’t find her. Today, it was revealed that Banegas, in fact, attempted suicide not long after the murders, is now believed to be residing in Georgia, and has shown little desire to cooperate in the investigation.

The defense cited her police statement in its opening argument, and she’s the only witness I know of who claims she saw more than two men leaving the scene. According to the defense, she’s also the only witness who doesn’t have a motive to pass all the blame to Turner and his alleged co-defendant, James Stewart.  Unless I’m missing something, she’d be a great defense witness; I’m curious to see if they call her tomorrow.