Michael Gresham: Secrets Girls Keep Part 27

"Were you able to determine what caused Amy's strangulation and carotid cuts?"

"A thin wire."

"Could a piano wire do this?"

"Definitely."

"Could a guitar string?"

"Absolutely."

"Or even common baling wire?"

"Without a doubt."

"Tell us more about the carotid artery involvement, please."

"Carotid arteries are the major vessels that transport oxygenated blood from the heart and lungs to the brain. These are the arteries at the side of the neck that persons administering CPR check for pulses. Jugular veins are the major vessels that transport deoxygenated blood from the brain back to the heart. The general clinical sequence of a victim who is being strangled is one of severe pain, followed by unconsciousness, followed by brain death."

"Describe Amy's death."

"Well, a.s.suming she was attacked with a thin wire, the wire of course destroyed her carotid arteries and she would have bled to death within minutes. Or she would have died from lack of oxygen. Either or both killed Amy Tanenbaum."

"Was it a painful death?"

"Extremely. There was great suffering by this young girl."

"Please describe the injuries to Amy's neck."

"Of course there was the ligature line. A complete circle around her neck that cut into the flesh all the way around. Also, I observed and filmed scratches, abrasions, and sc.r.a.pes. These would be from the victim's own fingernails as a defensive maneuver."

"She was struggling to free herself?"

"Yes. It was a very violent death as she flailed and fought to free herself from the noose."

"Describe the scratches, first off."

"Three types of fingernail markings occurred, singly and in combination. These were impression, scratch, and claw marks. Impression marks occurred when the fingernails cut into the skin. They were shaped like commas or semi-circles. Scratch marks were superficial and long as the fingernail itself. Claw marks occurred near the end of Amy's struggle when the skin was undermined. These are more vicious and dramatic appearing."

"So she scratched and clawed herself to remove the wire?"

"Her own skin and some flesh was removed from beneath her fingernails and examined. There was no foreign skin or flesh, indicating to me the a.s.sailant attacked her from behind and she wasn't able to reach around or back to him or her."

"Dr. Tsung, please allow me now to back up with more general questions."

"That's fine."

"For the record, are you a medical examiner?"

"Of course."

"How long have you been a medical examiner?"

"Fifteen years."

The doctor goes on and describes the training and education that goes into becoming a medical examiner. He explained what happens in an autopsy and the reasons we do autopsies. He has performed in excess of ten thousand autopsies himself. He then goes on to describe the role of the pathologist and how the pathologist and medical examiner will work together and complement each other. Finally, he describes Amy's autopsy in detail. The court takes a break at midpoint and the jurors file out of the courtroom, visibly stunned with what they have just undergone.

Upon taking up again, Dr. Tsung describes photos and injuries and denies internal injuries secondary to physical trauma. Then, for the record, he says the cause of death was strangulation coupled with exsanguination or bleed-out.

"The last area I want to cover, doctor, is the area of extraordinary findings by you. Were there extraordinary findings?"

"Yes. The a.s.sailant or someone close by had put a live mouse inside Amy's mouth then glued her mouth shut."

"Was the mouse alive when you performed the autopsy?"

"No."

"Had the mouse damaged Amy's oral tissues?"

"It had chewed almost completely through her right cheek."

The State's Attorney turns from the lectern and returns to his table for a gla.s.s of water, which he pours and slowly drinks down. Then he returns to the lectern. The moment is a high one for him: the jury is stupefied and aghast at what they just heard.

"Now. Tell us about the glue."

"Someone had applied Superglue to Amy's lips. I had to use my scalpel to visualize the oral cavity."

"You had to cut into her mouth?"

"Yes. Definitely."

"Have you ever, in your ten thousand autopsies, seen anything like this before?"

"I have seen everything. But not this. Never."

"Thank you, doctor."

The SA abruptly breaks off and it's my turn to cross-examine. He has caught me just a bit out of rhythm and so I ask the judge for a ten-minute recess. Granted.

Marcel comes forward through the bar with Danny close behind.

"How horrible!" Danny says.

"That was the worst ever, boss," Marcel agrees. "That son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h should get the electric chair."

"Well, lucky for him, Illinois no longer executes. So we're good there. It was that bad for the jury?"

Danny's look is grim. Her lips are ringed with white anger lines.

"Several women were crying. Even the men were having trouble holding it together. One man became visibly ill and was swallowing bile over and over. Dear Amy, what else don't we know about how painfully she died? The secrets girls keep."

"So, are we hurt?"

"Well," says Danny, "it sure as h.e.l.l didn't help."

When we resume, my cross-examination takes no more than five minutes. Why allow this expert to keep repeating what the jury has already found so repulsive? That's my thinking. The girl is dead, the death was violent, and the mouse and glue inexcusable. There, it's over and done, time to move on.

Hopefully without dragging all of this behind.

But it hangs on anyway. The afternoon air in the courtroom is polluted by what we've all just heard. We have inhaled it and it has become part of us. A dream that will never die.

Unlike Amy, who is gone and who now cries out for justice.

The face of every last juror says so.

40.

Colleen Takaguchi from the CSI team is telling us about hair and fiber. The jury is somewhat tuned in, but the forensics of the case are beginning to slow the State's momentum from the overdrive of the medical examiner to the less-exciting testimony of this technician who spent over six hours at the scene collecting evidence and over forty hours examining and testing what she found.

"Tell us about the hair in this case. What do we need to know?" asks SA d.i.c.kinson.

Takaguchi, a strapping thirty-something with the arms of a world-cla.s.s weightlifter, reaches and adjusts the square eyegla.s.ses on her flat nose.

"In my workup I used a comparison microscope to view known and unknown hairs side by side."

"What hairs did you compare?"

"I compared the hairs taken from the rodent removed by Dr. Tsung from Amy's mouth to the hairs taken from the mouse cage belonging to the defendant."

"The hairs taken from the mouse cage of Jana Emerich?"

"Yes."

"Your findings?"

"Well, there are common characteristics in the study of hair. My checklist of comparisons includes color and width; distribution pattern of the medulla; and color and distribution pattern of pigment in the cortex; and cuticle pattern."

"We'll hold off on describing those things. Did your comparisons of these two hair samples result in a laboratory finding?"

"Yes. The hair in her mouth was the same as the hair from the defendant's cage."

"You mean it was the same type."

"The same type of hair, yes."

"Now, are you saying it's the exact same hair or just the exact same hair type?"

"Hair type. Hair type only."

"Now, let's go ahead and describe the hair types you compared."

"Rodent hair contains coronal scales. Coronal or crown-like scales give the hair a mosaic surface appearance. Human hair rarely has these scales, but they're common among rodents. So, for openers, I knew I was dealing with rodent hair."

"What else?"

"The characteristics I've previously mentioned. They all matched up."

"So hair of the same type of mouse was found in the mouse cage and in the decedent's mouth?"

"Yes."

"What about transfer evidence? Any fingerprints, for example?"

"No, and no DNA samples, either. Not from the rodent where the killer might have handled the mouse and not from Amy's skin where the killer may have touched her. No DNA to study."

"What about mouse DNA? Did you try to establish whether the mice in the defendant's cage were the same family as the mouse in Amy's mouth?"

"Inconclusive there. I cannot say."

"Very well, then, that's all I have. Counsel, you may cross-examine."

I am immediately on my feet and stepping up to the lectern.

"Ms. Takaguchi, you've told us about the defendant's mouse study. But isn't it true you also did a study on the mouse hair taken from a second individual?"

"Yes."

"Who would that be?"

"Rudy Gomez."

"Who is Rudy Gomez?"

"Another student at Wendover High."

"And what did your comparison of Rudy's mouse hair to Amy's mouse hair tell you?"

"They matched. Same kind of hair."

"So at least one other person in Chicago keeps mice like the one in Amy's mouth?"

"Yes. At least one."