Just step up behind the court reporter. FREDERIC RIEDERS, called as a witness on behalf of Defendants, was duly sworn and testified as follows:
You do solemnly swear that the testimony you may give in the cause now pending before this Court, shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
My first name is Frederic, F-r-e-d-e-r-i-c, Rieders, R-i-e-d-e-r-s. DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. BLASIER:
A toxicologist—a toxicologist is a professional in the field of—you might say poisons, except that everything is a poison when it's too much. So the toxicologist concerns himself with the analysis of foreign compounds, usually in biological materials, but also inanimate materials, with the effect of chemical substances that are harmful for man and, with the way that man handles those chemical substances; what the chemicals do to the body and what the body does to the chemicals. I said "man." Men of course, it is also applied to other areas, such as veterinary toxicology, ecological toxicology, et cetera. But the science arose from the study of the interaction between chemicals and man, along the line of harm. "Forensic" refers to the application of toxicology to things that have to do with the open court—in Latin, it's call the forensic arena—and so it does deal with the application to legal proceedings, to various other things which may not involve legal proceedings, but making of law from a legislature. And in many cases, the evaluation of substances as to their safety and potential harmfulness, which then may become legal issues, although they're not always—some are medical, but they can be come legal because they are man-made things or man intervention things. So, really, what forensic toxicology is, in simple words, the application of chemical-harm study to legal matters.
Have you been retained by the defense in this case to examine the question of whether or not there is a chemical called EDTA frequently present in some of the blood stains in this case?
I'm a graduate of New York University's Washington Square College, where, after World War II, I completed my education, which I had done here and there in the country prior to that. I immigrated here in 1939. My—following military service, I returned to finish my education under the GI Bill. I received a bachelor's—bachelor of arts degree from New York University in 1948. No. I'm sorry. 19 -- Yes, in '48. In 1940 -- My major subject was chemistry and my minor subject was biology. In 1949, I received a master's of science degree from New York University in chemistry, primarily in—well, in analytical chemistry—that was my specialization—and in particular, toxicological chemistry. I was at the same time a trainee in forensic toxicology in the medical examiner's office in New York. Following that, I received a special fellowship to the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, its division of graduate studies, not towards a medical degree, but a doctor of philosophy degree, which was in the graduate division of the school. And in 1951, I completed the requirements. And in early I received the degree in 1952, doctor of philosophy. My major subject was pharmacology and toxicology. Pharmacology is the study of the interaction between chemicals and man. In the medical school, it is mostly centered on the interaction of medicinal substances. In man, only, in a very general plane, how to prescribe and how to use. Toxicology is that part of pharmacology which deals specifically with the harmful effects of chemicals. And then, of course, that, of course, is broader than just medicine; it includes nonmedicine substances. That was my major subject. And my minor subject was pathology, the study of disease, and physiology, the study of the functions of the human body. That I wrote a—did research and wrote a doctoral thesis on toxicology, and in 1952, was awarded the degree of doctor of philosophy.
Dr. Rieders, you are currently the founder and director of a laboratory called National Medical Services; is that correct?
Can you tell the jury very briefly what your employment experience prior to start of that laboratory.
My employment was quite varied. Of course, when I came here as an immigrant, I was anything from a steam blower to a glass blower, to a dish washer. You know what I mean; in 1939 that was a different time as far as relevance to this field is concerned. And experience—the experiences I had in the area, not particularly just toxicology, but of the medical sciences. I was a surgical technician and as a— as a company aid man in World War II in Europe, which gave me some background. I—during my last year working for a bachelor's degree in New York, I obtained a position with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of New York as a trainee. And as a junior toxicologist, actually being trained in the methods and procedures of autopsy tissue analysis in the toxicology division. I left there after two years to complete my—to work for my doctorate in Philadelphia. That was a special fellowship in which I did perform some service work for the hospital of Jefferson—Thomas Jefferson Hospital, along the lines of toxicology because I had some training in it. Also as a teaching assistant and mainly in toxicology, although some pharmacology. After completing the doctoral degree, I became a teacher at Jefferson and an instructor the department of pharmacology and industrial medicine, with the emphasis on industry, a pharmacologist, and I taught medical students, graduate students. Conducted research and published research on that I did, in addition to continuing some of the service work until I trained some other people to take over in the hospital laboratory. In 1956, the City of Philadelphia changed from coroner to medical examiner. And the first medical examiner of the city required the services of a full-time toxicologist, whose responsibility was to—to actually develop a toxicology service which didn't exist there before. And there were several candidates. I was among them. We were examined and I was selected for the position as chief toxicologist in the office of the medical examiner of the City of Philadelphia, which there, was in the health department. In addition to that, I also became responsible for organizing the center and operating a poison information center. I conducted my work for the City Medical Examiner's Office, servicing some of the hospitals in emergency toxicology and in other areas in the poison information center, but mainly in developing and carrying out, and then supervising the analyses of autopsy specimens for foreign substances, which helped them to delineate cause of death, manner of death, circumstances, et cetera. At the same time, I retained my affiliation with Jefferson and am still a full professor, although now I'm an adjunct until I have a teaching loan, 'cause most of my time is spent there. And I continue to teach and train at Jefferson. I still do that. This went from 1956, when I became chief, until 1970, when I founded and started an independent toxicological laboratory and consulting company, National Medical Services. I no longer own the company; it is owned by my family. I turned over my share of ownership and direction of the company over to them. I am laboratory director, and of course, since it's a family business, I'm also Chairman of the Board, whatever that means. And so I continue to, except for administrative duties, to be active in the field of toxicology, both professionally and as a teacher.
Dr. Rieders, have you testified as an expert in courts across the country on the subject of toxicology?
Have some of those times been for the prosecution in criminal cases and sometimes for the defense?
And do you do a lot of work—or what's called reference work for other labs, do various law enforcement agencies send you work to do?
Yes. That's our major source of work, is reference work for other large clinical laboratories. We do the toxicology for them, as specialists.
The blood stains that were analyzed by the FBI that I became concerned with—they may have analyzed others, which I don't know—are stains which I was told originated from the back gate at Mr. Simpson's home, and stains that came from a sock that was Mr. Simpson's sock, and blood stains— 25
Now, what technique did Special Agent Martz use to examine those stains for the presence of EDTA?
He used a technique which is a so-called hyphenated technique. It consists of essentially three—four separate steps that are combined into a unit. They are not retrofitted like an instrument is to design—to perform all four steps. The first step is called liquid chromatography. This consists of placing a sample into a tube which has some material in it. That helps to separate compounds from each other, and then pushing the materials through the tube with a liquid. In the course of that, the mixture—a mixture of compounds becomes separated either into individual, truly individual compounds, totally separated from each other, but at least also into groups of compounds. But you get separation in that fashion. The effluent which comes out the other end when these substances march out in an orderly fashion, one after the other, is then transferring the substances or the liquid as it marches out to a connecting device, to another instrument. And that is called an electro spray interface. When material enters the electro spray interface—this is a heated, very fine tube—it is heated to a high enough temperature, and all of those things that can vaporize and—vaporize and become a vapor and march out partly as a vapor, partly either as a gas, if the material is actually made into gas, into—or else is a very, very fine particulate spray, that is accomplished by putting a very high electric voltage charge on that tube. And that's why it's called electro spray. At the same time, there are two gases pass through: One of them is around that tube, and it carries away the vapors of water and other highly volatile materials. The other one goes through the tube and drives the vapors that stay in that path of the tube, and the very fine particles, into a piece of equipment called a mass spectrometer. The best way that I can explain to you a mass spectrometer is that, it is a device which, as a molecule, or as molecules comes into—into that device, it weighs them and it sorts them into molecules that weigh a certain amount and other molecules that weigh a different amount. And that is fairly characteristic of a substance; it's essentially—it's molecular weight, whether—whatever number it is. And there are several substances with the same number, but anyways, it's certainly a characteristic. What it then does, though, it applies energy to the molecules, and particularly—well, to the molecules to such an extent that they actually break into pieces. A molecule breaks into pieces. It doesn't break like a beer bottle, you know, into all kinds of various bits and pieces, but more like a diamond that is being cut by a jeweler. It breaks along certain energy planes and gives predictable parts of the molecule appearing in there.
From my— Then it goes ahead and weighs the pieces. To some of these pieces, we'll add up to the sum, to the total molecule, and it displays the pieces and how many of each piece there are present. So that you get what is called a mass spectrum, which one sees usually is lines along an axis and of certain height. This is a picture of the molecule with whatever else was broken off at that point in time, and had appeared at the particular time at the end of the tube. That is characteristic for a compound that we look for. Different compounds have different times at which it takes them to march through the tube, appear, and be put into the mass spectrometer. So by then, we have a characterization of a compound. That—how did we get in to it. It was extracted, for example, with water from something, either from tissue or from a swatch or from anything. So it's water soluble. We know that. It goes through the liquid chromatograph. That means the liquid is able to push it through, and it doesn't hang up front a lot. A lot of things hang up. Not only that, but it takes it a certain time to get through. That's called a retention time. So that is another characteristic. It's water soluble; it goes through the column; it has a given retention time; it is capable of being ionized in that—in that electro spectrometer tube and brought into the mass spectrometer.
The—one of these molecules that— well, the main molecule itself is weighed and displayed. So you now have the weight of the molecule. Actually, it's a little bit more than that, because it's also electrically charged. But you know what the weight is. Then it is broken up, and one of the pieces usually—or two pieces, the larger pieces are filtered into another mass spectrometer, which now breaks them up further, and goes into a third mass spectrometer, if necessary. In this case, it only went two ways. The first one, the molecule that came through and was filtered out is called the parent ion. It is the parent for the next two break-up ions. The ions which are call the daughter ion, each of these has a specified weight. Each of these appears at the same retention time as the molecular ion, the parent ion did. And so it's characterized as—each one of these characterizes the substance that you're looking for. In this case, EDT
So we have the characteristic of EDTA; that it was water soluble; it went through the system; it came out at a certain point in time at the end of the tube; and its molecular size at that point was weighed, was the right size to be EDTA or not; and that the break-ups, the daughter ion, also had appeared at the same retention time and weighed like characteristic pieces of EDT
That is how you characterize or exclude a substance. And that is called—the long name is liquid high performance liquid chromatograph electro spray tandem mass spectrometry tandem, but it's two mass spectrometers—actually, three that we're dealing with here.
Okay. And is it accurate that what you're looking for if you're trying to identify whether EDTA is present in something, you're looking for the retention time; you're looking for whether it's water soluble; you're looking for whether it has the right molecular weight; and you're looking for whether the pieces are the right size. Correct?
Yes, these are the—the characteristic type of results that you get in a tandem mass spectrometry. All the other things went on before to get us to this point, finally, from the—
No. My question is, the witness was describing something, and it's not clear which exhibit he's referring to.
(BY MR. BLASIER) 1215 and 1216 are two charts. Are those two separate testings of the blood stain from the sock?
Yes. That's what this chart will tie to.
MR. P. BAKER: Next chart is going to be next in order.
(BY MR. BLASIER) Now Doctor, the sock we're talking about is the sock that was purportedly found in Mr. Simpson's bedroom, and there was a large cut-out made where there was a blood stain on the ankle of one of those socks, correct?
Okay. And this isn't to scale, certainly, but Q206 is the stain that was tested by the FBI, correct?
Yes, where Q206 is, that is a tiny area that was cut out and transferred to a swatch, or was a swatch.
This chart depicts on the 3-6 scan along the long axis, down—these are the number of scans. It's like somebody with a pair of binoculars going like this (indicating) and looking along the line, and they detect a peak, which is in the right position for EDT
And the instrument that's used to scan it is set to look only at things that have a weight of 160. And the weight of 160 appears as a prominent peak at—is it 36 scan? I can't quite make it out from here -- 37, where EDTA standard was located. So this is another characteristic of EDTA here. (Indicating.)
What we see is, when the spyglass is set to look at all ions, combined and find—it finds one peak for all the ions in the same position, so that is the original broken-up molecule. All of them. They all come together at that one position 36, again, characteristic for EDT
So that this, in conjunction with all the other things we have talked about, is evidence for the actual presence of EDTA in that particular sample and in that particular analytical run.
Yes. It does the same thing the RIC, the rate the combined pieces show up at the retention. In this case, again, I can't see the number for certain, but it's around 37, 38 again! Also, the 160 daughter ion. That means the split ion also at the same retention, and it appears as a defined peak. So that is a repetition. There are two analytical runs, each showing the presence of EDT
A.
And what can you tell from the fact that two runs of the the stain show EDTA and the negative control doesn't?
Well, it shows that the sock itself didn't have EDTA in it, because it only had the EDTA where the swatch came from, where the blood stain was. It did not have EDTA where there wasn't any blood.
Let me show you what's been marked Exhibits 1218 and 1219. And can you tell the jury what those two charts are?
Those two charts are the same type of charts as we just saw for the sock. These are two analyses which were made on extract from swatches of what appear to be blood taken from the back gate. And they show the same kind of pattern as we saw before for the sock, from the back gate. They show that the total of combined ions have a retention of 39, and that the 160 molecular weight piece—break-up piece from the parent. The daughter ion, 160 molecular weight daughter ion, also has a peak at the 39 retention. So again, this is a run that is positive for EDT
A.
Now, the back gate was just a swatch that was taken from the blood stain known as number 117; is that correct?
One of the negative controls showed the presence that supposedly came from another place on there, and it showed the presence of EDT
Even though it was considered a negative control, it came from where there wasn't supposed to be any blood. The other three did not show any EDTA, so they came from other areas on the back gate, and showed none of these characteristics that we have been discussing—didn't show any EDT
A.
Was there actually a third test that was labeled as coming from the back-gate stain that showed no EDTA?
(Continuing.) There's one other one, Q204, that is negative for EDTA, does not have the requisite peaks, as we call them, in that area. And then there's one which is—well, this is called Q204 control. No. I'm sorry. The Q204 control shows it; that's the one I mentioned before. The repeat of Q204, which was actually the blood, supposedly blood, is stained, doesn't show it. So there is one that supposedly comes from the bloody stain, but doesn't show any EDT
A.
I'll make 2292 the repeat of Q204, and 2293 the control from Q204. Let me put these both on the Elmo.
(BY MR. BLASIER) Now, Dr. Rieders, I've indicated that of the two sock stains that were tested, came up positive for EDTA and the negative control came up negative, correct?
And for the back gate, there were two tests for the presence of EDTA from the blood stain that—that came back above, and there were three negative controls that came back negative, correct?
Now, do you have an opinion on why this negative control here showed presence of EDTA and the actual stain doesn't?
I believe that there was an accidental switch made somewhere along the line, between what was supposed to be the negative control and what was supposed to be the bloody stain control.
KEY QUOTEIs it accurate to say that all of the— The charts that were run in this run are consistent with there being EDTA present on the back gate and the sock, with the exception of these two?
Okay. Now, did Special Agent Martz attempt to quantify the amount of EDTA that was located on the back gate and on the sock?
No. He, according to everything that I saw in the record—all that he told me, he did not attempt to quantify it; he merely wanted to see is there some there or isn't there any.
Now, you have seen some charts that Agent Martz produced showing differences in known quantities of EDTA blood and the stains in this case?
And do you have an opinion as to whether the analysis that was done with respect to the quantity of EDTA that was found is a valid analysis?
It's only valid qualitatively. Let me tell you why. There are two measures of amount. One of them is just the amount you know how much is on that picture here. In order to have an idea of what that is, you have to have standards. And the standards, as well as the sample, have to contain one additional thing. And that is called an internal standard. That means, in another chemical substance which is very close to the substance that you're looking for, but is sufficiently different so that it will separate from it and have a different retention time. And the reason for that is that, particularly electro spray gives you variable amounts every time you run it. There are slight variations and sometimes very substantial ones. If you have an internal standard, then that is affected the same way as the chemical that you're looking for; so if there's only a low peak in one, then the other one's lower, too. The ratio between the two remains unaffected. So if you know how much the internal standard represents and what the ratio is, you can go back to your curve and determine what the amount is. If you do not have that internal standard, you can—you can guess, you know. It's there; it's more than an amount that couldn't detect. It's less than a lot. So it's a tiny bit of the EDTA that is there. Now, that is amount. The important thing is to know concentration. And that simply means amount perfect what. If you take a drop of blood, a measured drop of blood, which is usually around 50 microliters, and you analyze it, and you find and use an internal standard and you calculate an amount, then you can say this is the concentration, so many nanograms, let us say, per microgram of blood. But if you don't measure how much blood you have, that you started with, then you have no way of knowing what the concentration is. It's like saying, you know, I've got— I've got some alcohol here; I've got a half an ounce of alcohol. So is this from beer or is it from whiskey, or is it from wine? You have to know how much wine or how much liquid you analyzed. If you know how much liquid, then you know that this amount is 6 percent of the liquid. It's probably beer if it's 50 percent of the liquid; it's probably 100-proof spirits. But if you don't know how much of the total you had, you can't get to a concentration. And there was no—I saw no measurements of the amount of blood that was used in the analysis from the—from the—from the gate or from the socks or in the controls. Controls, it would be zero. You know, that's the amount that you find, which is not in the—nothing. Which, in the case of blood, you have to know what's in the lower part of the equation. The denominator, so many milligrams of micrograms per milliliter of blood or whatever you want, but you have to know how much you use to calculate that.
Now, Dr. Rieders, do you have an opinion as to the source of the EDTA in the back gate stain and the sock stain?
To the source? Other than the blood from a living person who has not been—from a living person who has not received EDTA intravenously—it is given intravenously as a treatment in lead poisoning and in other poisonings—but normal blood, there's—not come from someone who's had it injected into them does not contain any by this means at that level of sensitivity, detectable amount of EDT
A.
Well, if you're referring to a medical laboratory purple-top tube, yes. When you draw blood from a patient for testing, you have to draw it into a tube. If you want to test a whole blood where it doesn't coagulate, so you put an anticoagulant in it. There are various anticoagulants. Of the purple tube, or sometimes called lavender-top tube is one which has EDTA, which dries up all the calcium in the blood, and the blood won't coagulate. So that's called EDTA blood. That's what you do when you draw blood for various measurement purposes.
Do you have an opinion whether or not the EDTA that was detected by Special Agent Martz could have come from a purple-top tube?
And that is in terms of finding in blood the most common source, unless, of course, there's some outside contamination introduced otherwise. But the most common reasonable source is that it has to be purple-top-tube blood.
And are there studies that examine the question of how much EDTA a person might have in their blood just normally, from eating food that has it in it?
Yes. There have been studies very early, as a matter of fact, and with a technique that you can't even use anymore. They won't allow you to.
And do those studies indicate that the source of EDTA in this case could have come from normal ingestion of food?
No, not even from abnormal ingestion. The amount that is found—that was found by this radioactive label technique—that's really what it was—was absolutely minuscule of a measure after measured amounts even greater than what we get in food today were given to people. The reason I say it's not done now is, you can't give radioactive—that kind of radioactive material to people to find out whether they're absorbing something.
KEY QUOTEIn your opinion, is there any source of EDTA other than a purple-top tube, that could account for the findings of the FBI in this case?
Well, contamination, of course, can— accidental, other contamination of those that were positive.
I really don't know where it came from, but those are the two things that I can tell you where it may come from, either from EDTA blood or from some contamination that was introduced at some point in time into the material.
Now, contamination, could that have been something in the laboratory—let me rephrase that. There were other blank samples that were run along the stains in this case, were there not?
And other than the one control that we talked about, did any of those show the presence of EDTA?
Is that consistent with the source of EDTA in this case being something other than contamination?
No, it really isn't. Contamination is usually a random thing. You know, accidental contamination, and this is not random. You have a set of positives and a set of negatives. With the exception of the two samples that you mentioned, and as I mentioned, my opinion is that these are switched samples, you know, one is supposed to be the other.
So is there—Is there any indication of contamination as being a source to the positive results that the FBI found in this case?
Let me ask it this way. Is it possible to have EDTA or any other compound left over in the column that you use for the chromatography stage?
Well, if you—let's say you inject into this equipment a lot—relatively large amount of EDTA, let's say it comes out with a reading of 20 and then you make—right after that, you make another injection or what should be a negative, a blank, for instance, and there you see a peak, but instead of being 20 it's between one and two. That is very much likely or—Well it's sufficiently likely to be a ghost, that what happened in the first one that some of the EDTA got stuck on the injection side or somewhere along the line and the second injection that came with it cleared it off, pushed it out and showed it up. But I have never seen ghosting that is more than ten percent, it's almost always less than ten percent of the previous injection. So unless there is an injection before that which is at least ten times as high as a little bit that shows up, I don't believe that this could be a ghost. There's no way in here anything that— looks like it was just injected before and was very high.
So is it your opinion that the two sock stains and the three gate stains that tested positive for EDTA, were not due to ghosting?
Take a ten-minute recess ladies and gentlemen, don't talk about the case. Don't express any opinions.
the most common reasonable source is that it has to be purple-top-tube blood
Contamination is usually a random thing. You know, accidental contamination, and this is not random. You have a set of positives and a set of negatives.
I believe that there was an accidental switch made somewhere along the line, between what was supposed to be the negative control and what was supposed to be the bloody stain control.
No, not even from abnormal ingestion.
The rest of it, yes. (Laughter.)