Paul Madriani: The Jury Part 4

As entertaining as some of these might be, they could never match the chilling content of a schooled medical examiner reciting the details of a sudden and violent death.

Max Schwimmer's speech still retains hints of an Austrian accent, a remnant of his childhood. "Of course" comes out "af coss."

He is the county's chief medical examiner, and today Tannery has him on the stand outlining the case of murder against my client.

At the heart of the case is the infamous cable tie, a thin piece of white nylon. This one was nearly forty inches long, though one end had been cut. It is ratcheted on one side by tiny teeth molded into a nylon strip. When slipped into the yoke at the other end making a loop and pulled through, these teeth make a sound like a zipper as the tie is tightened. The tie locks in place and can be moved in only one direction, to tighten it. When pulled fast, it can hold tremendous tension. Cable ties may be purchased in any hardware store and are used by everyone from electricians to bundle mazes of wire, to cops who sometimes use them as temporary handcuffs to collar rioters. In this case, a cable tie was used to strangle Kalista Jordan.

"Doctor, can you state with certainty the cause of death?"

"Asphyxia. Technically, it was mechanical asphyxia."

"You're not saying that some machine did this?" Tannery is holding up one of the photos of the victim, her head looking like a purple blister about to burst.

"Mechanical asphyxia is a technical term. She was strangled, by the application of a ligature, in this case a nylon cable tie that was fastened and pulled tight around her throat."

"I believe you stated earlier that the victim was rendered unconscious at some point prior to death. Do you know how long after the ligature was applied before the victim would have become unconscious?"

Schwimmer thinks for a moment. "Perhaps a minute, maybe two, after the ligature was tightened. Up here. Up high," he says. The pathologist motions with both hands, front and back around his throat. "All movement by the victim would cease within three or four minutes."

"So she might still be moving even though she was unconscious?"

"Some involuntary reflexes," says the doctor.

"Would she feel pain during this period?"

"Oh, yes."

"And how long before death took place?"

"The heart would stop beating within another five minutes."

"So if my calculations are correct, from the time the ligature was applied to the point of death might have been anywhere from nine to eleven minutes?"

"That's right."

"So there is nothing quick, instantaneous or particularly humane about this kind of death?"

"Absolutely not."

"Would you call it a lingering death in that it is slow?"

"Yah. Several minutes."

"Would you call it a painful death?" asks Tannery.

"Objection. The witness has already testified that the victim was unconscious at the time of death."

"Your Honor, I'm talking about the period before she became completely unconscious."

"Overruled. The witness can answer the question." Judge Harvey Coats is himself a former prosecutor. He was elected to the bench six years ago, knocking off an inc.u.mbent appointed by the governor, who failed to heed the warnings of local law enforcement that his man did not have their blessing.

"I would say that strangulation is a painful way to die," says Schwimmer. "I would not choose it if I had a choice."

"Would you call it an agonizing death, Doctor?"

"Objection."

"I think you've made your point," says Coats. "Move on."

If Tannery wanted to drive this sword in deeper he would now take out his watch, turn to the jury, stare at them, and time it. Two minutes of silence would seem like a year. Nine to eleven minutes, a.s.suming some tepid judge would allow it, would be an eternity. I have had it done to me, and I have done it to others. Fortunately for us, Tannery doesn't think of this.

Instead he takes a different course.

"Can you describe for the jury the physical effects suffered by the victim as the cable tie was applied and tightened around her throat?"

"The tie is very strong. The one in question used here has a tensile strength of two hundred and fifty pounds."

"What does that mean?"

"You could apply that much tension to the tie before it would fail, stretch or break. And it was thin. It produced a severe cutting edge when tightened. In this case it cut partially into the victim's jugular vein."

"Can you be sure that the victim died of asphyxiation? Is it possible that she could have bled to death?"

What the significance of this is I am not sure, but Schwimmer quickly puts it to rest.

"Asphyxiation. Due to ligature strangulation," he says.

"Wouldn't she tend to bleed to death if the jugular were cut?"

"If it were severed cleanly, completely, perhaps. But in this case the cable tie merely cut a deep ligature furrow that abraded a small portion of the surface of the vein. The orientation of this furrow was horizontal with just a little upward deviation at the posterior of the neck. There was some bleeding, including soft-tissue hemorrhage and abrasion, just below the ligature furrow. This groove, the ligature furrow, crosses the anterior midline of the neck, the front just below the laryngeal prominence. Here," he says, "around the Adam's apple. And fracture of the hyoid bone."

"In layman's terms?" says Tannery.

"The voice box was crushed. The breathing pa.s.sage collapsed. There is no doubt. She died of asphyxia."

"In nine to eleven minutes?" asks Tannery.

"Approximately."

"Can you describe for the jury the physiological changes, what the victim would feel or experience as a result of asphyxiation by strangulation?"

"Yes. The pressure in the head would build as a result of constricted blood vessels, and the inability of the brain to obtain oxygen. There would be panic, a good deal of fear. The back of the tongue would be lifted and pulled into the posterior of the throat. This would block the airway. In a few seconds, the tongue would begin to swell. The head would turn a reddish purple. The lips would ultimately become cyanotic. . . ."

"What does that mean?"

"They would take on a pale blue to black color. Death would result from a lack of oxygen in the tissues of the brain."

"How can you be sure this particular case was not suicide or an accident?" asks Tannery.

Schwimmer actually smiles at this. He looks at the D.A. as if perhaps Tannery is joking. "You mean apart from the fact that the body was dismembered after death?" asks Schwimmer.

"Yes. Apart from that. I'm talking about a possible hanging, suicide or accident as the cause of death, leaving aside what happened to the body afterward."

Tannery is covering his bases, on the long shot that we try to defend on the theory that she killed herself, and Crone merely panicked for fear that he would be blamed, and disposed of the body.

Schwimmer considers for a moment. "Well the ligature marks. The bruising on the neck was not consistent with hanging if that's what you mean. When a person hangs herself, a.s.suming she could use this thing-this nylon cable tie to do this, you would get a V pattern of bruising on the neck."

"A V?"

"Yes. The result of gravity on the body, pulling it downward, and sagging of the ligature. Here you have a straight line, a ligature mark-in fact, in places it is so deep as to be an incision. It takes a straight line, almost level all the way around the neck. This is consistent with asphyxia by strangulation from behind."

"And how do you know it was from behind, Doctor?"

"Because when the body was recovered, the ligature was still tightened around the neck, embedded in the outer flesh. The yoke, where the cable tie is joined together in a continuous loop, was at the midline here." He reaches around to the back of his neck. "It was notched just slightly above the first cervical vertebra at the posterior midline of the neck."

"And what did you conclude from this?"

"That the victim died as a result of a criminal agency," says Schwimmer.

"So the jury can understand, Doctor?"

"She was killed by someone else. "

"You're saying this was a homicide? A murder? The intentional killing of another person?"

"That's correct."

Tannery turns away from the witness for a moment as if to regroup for the next a.s.sault.

"Doctor, would you say that the physical evidence as you observed it, the way the ligature was applied, indicated that some thought and preparation had been given to this act?"

"Objection. Counsel is leading."

"Sustained. Rephrase the question," says Coats.

Tannery does so and gets the answer he wants, that some thought and preparation went into the act. Schwimmer has brought some cable ties with him for purposes of demonstration. Tannery has him take several from a bag. One he gives to the judge, who studies it briefly and lays it on the bench. Another is delivered to our counsel table by the bailiff. Two others, with the court's approval, start filtering through the jury box.

"These are identical to the cable tie used to kill the victim, Kalista Jordan," says Schwimmer. "I believe they are made by the same manufacturer. They are designed as heavy-duty cable ties, thirty-four-point-eight inches long, three-eighths of an inch wide, made of white industrial nylon. They have a tensile strength of two hundred and fifty pounds."

One of the male jurors has actually snapped the open end of one of the ties into the yoke and is pulling on the closed loop as if to test its strength. It doesn't budge.

"In order to apply the tie to the victim in the manner in which I believe was done in this case, it would be necessary first to make a loop by inserting the open end into the yoke."

Schwimmer demonstrates. The tie is now a large white nylon loop in his hand like a buckled belt, only much thinner, with the tip sticking through the yoke like a tail a couple of inches at one end.

"Why would that be necessary?" asks Tannery.

"If the loop were not started in this fas.h.i.+on, and if the victim were to struggle, it would be very difficult if not impossible for the killer to insert the end into the small opening of the yoke. Like threading a needle," he says. "Very difficult to do if someone is jostling you, resisting. No, I believe it is clear that the cable tie was prepared in this fas.h.i.+on prior to the attack."

"And this would indicate some thought and preparation by the killer?" Tannery is getting at the elements of premeditation and deliberation.

"Yes. Also there is evidence that the killer used a tensioning tool for leverage," says Schwimmer.

"A tensioning tool?"

The coroner reaches into the bag again and comes up with a device that looks like a pistol with a long trigger. He holds it up for the jury and the judge to see, and we all examine this, though we have seen it before.

"This is specifically designed for tightening cable ties. The open end fits in here." He feeds the open end of the tie into what would be the barrel of the gun until it hits bottom, then works the trigger. The tool grips the tie, and with each pull of the trigger more than two hundred pounds of pressure can be applied to the tie. The physics of leverage.

"Do you think the killer attached a tool like this to the tie used to kill Kalista Jordan . . .?"

"Yes."

"Let me finish the question, Doctor. Do you think the killer used a tool like this, and that he or she did this in preparation for the murder?"

"I do," says Schwimmer. "We found small impressions on the nylon tie used to kill the victim. These marks are consistent with a tool of this type, which is commonly used and sold with the cable ties.

"Also," says Schwimmer, "such a tool would give the killer great leverage. The a.s.sailant would not have to pull the thin nylon with the hands."

"Is that important?"

"Yes. Given the pressure applied, the nylon could easily have cut the hands."

Tannery takes all this in, nodding as he paces a few feet away from the jury box.

Now he moves toward the witness. "Doctor, can you demonstrate how you believe the killer in this case applied the cable tie around the neck of Kalista Jordan?"

"Sure. I can do that." Schwimmer gets up from the witness chair and comes out of the box into the well just beyond the clerk's desk. There before the judge and jury, with Tannery playing victim, the coroner approaches from behind. Deftly he slips the looped cable tie over the D.A.'s head and swiftly pulls on the gun-handled tool to tighten it just short of full tension. There is the sound of an audible zip as the nylon teeth slip through the tiny locking yoke.

"Once it is snug," says Schwimmer, "the killer would work the trigger on the tensioning device to tighten it. Two or three pulls would do it."

"Thank you. I think that's enough, Doctor." Tannery tries to remove the tie by lifting it over his head, but it has been closed too far. It is clear to me, perhaps not to the jury, that the witness and Tannery have rehea.r.s.ed this. The clerk has to lend Schwimmer a pair of good-sized scissors in order to cut the loop and remove it from around Tannery's neck. The witness steps back up into the witness box and takes a seat.

The D.A. is left feeling with one hand around his throat, a not so subtle gesture for the benefit of the jury. "All things considered, and a.s.suming the element of surprise," he says, "this would be a very effective weapon, would it not, Doctor?"

"Oh, yes. And silent. It makes very little noise."

"Once it's locked in place and tightened, it can't be removed except by cutting the nylon tie. Is that right?" As if Tannery had not just proved the point.

"Yes. That is correct."

Tannery heads back toward his counsel table, begs the court's indulgence and looks over a few notes, flipping pages as if to find his place, then comes back toward the box.

"Let me ask you, Doctor. You had an opportunity to observe the ligature that was used in this case before it was removed from Kalista Jordan's throat. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"Did you remove that ligature yourself?"