Let me reask the question, doctor. Did you on the 17th of June ask Mr. Simpson when he received any of these injuries?
And what was his response on the 17th of June with respect to when he received any of the injuries?
His response was that he received cuts on his hand on the third finger on the knuckle in Chicago the--the 14th I guess, on June 14th, just before he returned to New York and that he may have cut himself on his fingers before he came to--he got on the airplane while getting his stuff together, but he didn't really know because he cut himself very frequently. He has a lot--and he did have a lot of nicks and bruises that were old and healed up.
Did he say to you, sir, that he received any of those cuts while he was still in Los Angeles on the 12th of June in preparation to go to the airport for a trip to Chicago?
Yes. That he had cut himself, wasn't quite sure how he cut himself and noticed he had been bleeding, but didn't know how it came about in his home, someplace in this home on Rockingham before he got onto the airplane going to Chicago.
And which cut or cuts did he refer to as receiving before leaving his home on Rockingham to go to the airport?
Yeah. My interpretation was that one of the cuts on the distal inside of the fingers, the third or fourth finger, not the one on the knuckle. The one on the knuckle, he clearly recalled cutting himself in Chicago before coming back I guess on the 13th, not the 14th, and that he had a cut on the inside of one of the fingers which he didn't even realize had happened until he saw some blood coming out of it.
Now, doctor, did you ask him on the 17th how the mechanism, the manner in which he got any of the cuts you observed?
What, if anything, did Mr. Simpson have to say as to the manner in which he got the cuts?
That he recalls some blood after trying to retrieve his phone or some material from the Bronco--from a car--from a car that he had his phone, I think it was the Bronco, that he had gone to the Bronco to get something and may have somehow cut himself while getting stuff, stuff from the Bronco to bring with him to Chicago.
The back--the knuckle and middle finger was that he broke a glass in the hotel room in Chicago after hearing about his ex-wife's death.
Now, doctor, as a forensic pathologist by training, do you usually treat with some suspicion self-reporting made by possible suspects in crimes?
Doctor, the injury to the middle finger that you say Mr. Simpson claimed was due to glass, did he show you how you could get a cut along the middle finger, the back of the middle finger by having some involvement with glass?
Well, he said to me words to the effect that after hearing the news by telephone, he was at a sink or something and squeezed and broke and banged a glass against, as I recall, the sink top right next to the faucet, right next to the sink faucets and somehow cut his--his--back of his finger from the shatter or the broken glass.
No. I had the--you have the photograph showing the scrape marks on--on the inside of the wrist at that area.
And that is something that is consistent with, for example, Mr. Goldman scratching or rubbing across that area of Mr. Simpson's arm if Mr. Simpson had Mr. Goldman from behind with his left arm as Dr. Lakshmanan demonstrated; isn't that correct, sir?
No. I think that whole demonstration of Dr. Lakshmanan I have difficulty with and I think that--because it's purely speculative. But there are many ways in which one can scrape the inside of the wrist, and it could have happened on Monday, on Sunday, on Saturday, on Tuesday. There's no way of dating when it happened except that it was healing when I saw it.
Doctor, my question to you was, assuming that Mr. Simpson did have Mr. Goldman as Dr. Lakshmanan demonstrated, with his left arm around the chest of Mr. Goldman and his right hand holding the knife at Mr. Goldman's neck, making those two parallel superficial incise wounds, is it consistent with what you see as the abrasions along this area of the wrist that that can be caused by Mr. Goldman's effort to free himself from that bar arm hold?
Doctor, how in your opinion can somebody get a cut on the back of their middle finger from slamming a glass down without having cuts or other injuries in the palm or pinky or fourth finger areas when the glass is slammed down, if in fact that ever occurred?
If the glass is slammed down, there are broken shards of glass, a piece of glass and the individual tries to move it aside with the back of his hand. People can get cuts on the back of their hands from a broken glass. I mean, they're not grabbing the cuts. They're shaving into the sink, because I did see photographs of--from Chicago of glass in the sink. And if he were to have moved the glass with the back of his hand, it's possible to cut himself.
Did he ever tell you he moved the glass with the back of his hand and that's how he cut himself?
He told me he didn't--he was so disturbed, he didn't recall exactly what happened except that he cut himself, and then there was blood on the sheet next to the telephone which gave support to that.
Your Honor, may they be marked--I think we're at 581--a through whatever the last appropriate number will be--letter?
But we'll need to mark them so the record will reflect which one we're referring to.
Doctor, let me show you what I'll first mark as 581-A, and it has a designation already, no. 16 in the upper left-hand back corner.
Let me show you second one, ask that that be B, and it has the number 1 in the upper--well, would be the lower right hand as one looks at the photo. Did you look at that?
Your Honor, Mr. Douglas, who is keeping track of our exhibits, asks that if they may be described a little better for the sake of keeping our records. We'd appreciate it.
All right. Appears to be a photograph of a sink with what appears to be glass in the drain area.
Doctor, assuming that this is a photograph taken in Chicago after Mr. Simpson had been notified by the Los Angeles Police Department of the death of Nicole Brown Simpson and that the room was secured at some point after that call and found in the sink was what you see in this photograph.
And showing you the balance of the photograph--I don't know how closely you had an opportunity to look at them--this is B showing the sink area and the floor. Do you see at least on the sink area what appears to be blood anywhere?
And this is--I believe this is the one that's marked no. 5. I believe this is C showing the left side of the sink with a partial picture of the glass. Do you see that?
Well, Dr. Baden, I'd be glad to show you the front of the hotel if that will be of any assistance to you, but I don't think it will.
No. Counsel, he gets to conduct his examination and show what he wants. You get to do whatever you want on redirect.
Now, doctor, if the glass had been slid across into the sink and a cut had been incurred in that fashion, would you expect to see some smearing of blood along the surface where the action is taking place?
Might if the bleeding started right away and if it weren't washed off in the interim, afterwards.
That's a very vascular area, this area of the middle finger around the knuckle. Isn't that what you said?
I didn't say that, but I--the hand is vascular and the knuckles are vascular. One bleeds from the--that kind of a cut and I would expect him to bleed pretty quickly. I don't know. These photographs are obviously taken many hours after the incident. So I don't know--
Because I assumed there was no cameramen in the hotel in his room when he did this.
KEY QUOTEDoctor, you have no personal knowledge, do you, as to when these photographs were taken in relationship to the injury allegedly being incurred with a broken glass?
And you don't know when an inspection of that room took place in relationship to when Mr. Simpson checked out of the hotel, do you?
And you don't know if during that inspection this was the condition that the room was found in and it was secured for the police to arrive? You have no personal knowledge or dispute that either?
Doctor, by the way, did Mr. Simpson tell you when he went out to the Bronco to get the phone and allegedly cut himself possibly on that area, fourth finger?
He told me that while preparing to go to Chicago, at some point, he went to the Bronco to get a phone and maybe other material and he also did things around the house in the kitchen, and at some point he noticed some blood. But--from--coming from his finger, but this was shortly before he left for Chicago.
Doctor, at the time you talked with Mr. Simpson on the 17th, had you been apprised by listening to anything or seeing anything indicating that Mr. Simpson's blood had been found in the Bronco and at his Rockingham home found by police?
I don't recall. I--I don't recall what I knew at that time. I had not known--I doubt it. I doubt it because I didn't know too much about the death and the investigation until I came into Los Angeles at Mr. Shapiro's request, and that was just a few hours--the evening before Dr. Lee and I came to Mr. Kardashian's house to look--to examine Mr. Simpson. So I don't know what I knew at that time, Mr. Kelberg.
Doctor, you were in communication with Mr. Shapiro between the 14th and the 16th when you arrived, correct?
And did you ask Mr. Shapiro at any time during the course of those conversations basically what was the status of the police investigation?
I'm going to move to a different area. And, your Honor, are we going to 5:00 is it?
Doctor, you talked about the stomach contents. Do you recall your testimony in that regard?
And would you expect that Dr. Golden's description of Nicole Brown Simpson's stomach contents would not be a difficult task to do; that is a trained forensic pathologist can examine stomach contents and identify sometimes by the naked eye what the contents are?
Doctor, did you ever contact people at the Mezzaluna restaurant to see what was served that night to the Brown Simpson party?
I made inquiry. I didn't call Mezzaluna restaurant, but I asked--discussed that with Mr. Shapiro about finding out that information.
And did you find that, in fact, there were pasta dishes served which come with rigatoni?
If she testified that she had heard after the incident from talking to the other employees that Miss Brown Simpson had rigatoni, would that refresh your memory of any information you received in that regard?
And referring Court and counsel to 13568 and 13569, starting at line 18. "Question: Do you have any independent recollection as to what Nicole Brown Simpson had for dinner that night? "Answer: No. No. "Question: Do you have any way of refreshing your memory as to what she had for dinner? "Answer: Only discussions that happened after the event. "Question: Discussions with who? "Answer: People in the restaurant, employees, fellow employees. "Question: And did that refresh your memory as to what she had for dinner? "Answer: Yes. "Question: And, well, what did they tell you? "Answer: Rigatoni." Doctor, assuming that that testimony was given, would Dr. Baden's--I'm sorry--Dr. Golden's findings in the stomach contents of rigatoni tend to support the accuracy of Tia Gavin's testimony as to what Nicole Brown Simpson had?
Doctor, assuming Dr. Golden had no information at the time of the autopsy as to where Nicole Brown Simpson had eaten dinner on the 12th and what she had had for dinner on the 12th and he identified rigatoni in the stomach contents along with a leafy material apparently like spinach and black olives, would that be consistent, sir, with the testimony of Tia Gavin?
Doctor, the menu--did you ever see the bill from Mezzaluna that showed the entries?
Mr. Kelberg, isn't the issue whether or not that testimony by Tia Gavin would have any impact on Dr. Baden's testimony here about the presence of rigatoni in the stomach contents as it relates to the time to digest and the time of death? Isn't that the issue?
Dr. Baden, you said that rigatoni as a pasta will break down from its identifiable condition within a half an hour?
Yes. Usually within a half hour, maybe a little longer, depending on how much is eaten.
Well, sir, if you study the stomach contents, you would have to know, A, the exact time of death, correct?
Not necessarily, Mr. Kelberg, because, especially with pasta like materials, the stomach can keep breaking down the materials after death you see. There's certain amount of digestive juices in the stomach that keep acting even after a person dies.
Well, doctor, you would need to know then, no. 1, when the person ate the alleged pasta, right?
Where are your studies, if any, have been done to show how you have correlated actual time of eating pasta with identification of stomach contents?
I haven't published any studies along those lines, but this is ordinarily medical examiner daily work.
Sir, is it your view that the stomach normally empties within two hours of the time of eating?
For a normal meal, 95 percent of a meal in a healthy person will empty within two hours. Yes, sir.
And that's a case where the Prosecution in Albany, New York, retained your services on a possible murder of a woman, Joan Bent, correct?
And in that case, Joan Bent had been missing for about 11 days when her body was found in the trunk of her car, correct?
And her body was basically in a frozen condition given the cold temperatures at the time of these events; isn't that correct?
Her husband had given an account to the police reporting her missing in which he said that they had been together about 4:30 for dinner, correct?
Your Honor, I'm going to object to this on relevancy grounds and 352 if we go through the whole case, which took a long time to try.
Doctor, and you formed an opinion based upon the contents of potatoes in the stomach that the husband had lied to the police because the form of the potatoes was such that it would have to have been death within about an hour at the most of the meal being taken in by Mrs. Bent; isn't that correct?
Yeah. That was part of my evaluation. That is that the--the knife cuts, serrated knife cuts on the potatoes, which were swallowed and not chewed, were still identifiable.
Your Honor, I'll do it without the transcript. I'll let counsel review the transcript over the evening hours. I would like my binder back.
He can be confronted with inconsistent testimony. It may not be necessary. Proceed.
All right. Doctor, your view is that in general, 95 percent contents of the stomach will pass from the stomach within two hours of eating, correct?
It was pork and potatoes I remember. I don't remember the volume, but I do remember they were intact potato, sliced whole potatoes with I believe serrated edges on some of the potatoes from the cut--from the knife.
Doctor, are you relying on any research for your position that the stomach empties within two hours, 95 percent of the stomach empties within two hours of eating?
From personal experience, from studies done by giving people barium meals; that is the radiologist commonly or used to in the old days before cat scans and all, would give patients barium meals and then x-ray the meal to see how quickly it emptied, and my experience in readings, yes.
And you heard him testify about the Bolandi study, which was a study using ultrasound to see how a pasta meal went through a person's stomach?
I have a vague recollection. Incidentally, I don't believe I was here every day for Dr. Lakshmanan. Either I or Dr. Wolf were here. So I don't specifically remember that.
If Dr. Lakshmanan testified regarding the Bolandi study, that a pasta meal took 248 minutes, roughly four hours, to pass, that would be inconsistent with your opinion about a pasta meal such as a rigatoni meal passing within two hours; isn't that correct, sir?
No. It isn't inconsistent because it depends what you mean by the meal passing. What I'm talking about is the bulk of the meal passing--
Because--approximately 95 percent because the stomach in a normal person has little grooves in it, what are called rugae, and food often gets trapped so that things that we eat can still be in those grooves 24 hours later. But the great bulk of the meal will normally be out of the stomach in about two hours.
If Nicole Brown Simpson finished eating at the Mezzaluna restaurant a rigatoni dinner with a salad and left that restaurant between 8:30 and 9:oo, a quarter to 9:00 as one witness testified, and stopped eating sometime before she actually left the restaurant, sir--
--and then did not have any additional rigatoni, did not have any additional salad, based upon your view of how the stomach empties, sir, what time of death would you give for her murder?
Objection on two grounds. No. 1, that she had a rigatoni dinner, and, no. 2, and it assumes facts not in evidence.
I have a problem with your question because it depends how much she ate at the time of her death two hours--somewhere around two hours later according to your theory. She had a half a quart of food in her stomach. That's a huge amount of food. So if you're asking me to assume that she didn't eat anything after she left the restaurant, that's a big assumption. I'll assume what you're asking, but then she would have had to have a huge amount of food at the Mezzaluna restaurant, assuming she was a healthy person, had normal digestion.
Doctor, if you testified in the bent case that a thousand cc's was the content of Mrs. Bent's stomach and that constituted a heavy meal and if we assume that Dr. Golden found 500 cc's in Miss Brown Simpson's stomach--and that is in fact what his report indicates, isn't it, sir?
And, doctor, assuming that she had her rigatoni and her salad at the restaurant, maybe went for ice cream, but didn't have rigatoni, didn't have salad after that, what would you estimate the time of death to be given your view that 90 to 95 percent of the stomach contents is gone within two hours of the meal being eaten?
Doctor, that hypothetical I gave you, my question to you is, your opinion in this case as to the time of death for Nicole Brown Simpson, given that hypothetical set of circumstances.
Leaving out the bent case because you made an improper comparison. Leaving out the bent case.
No. He can answer the question. You're asking him to give an expert opinion based on a hypothetical set of circumstances. He stated which does not include the bent case.
My opinion would be that if she had 500 cc, milliliters of food in her stomach with recognizable pasta, rigatoni, having eaten before 8:30 P.M., that it doesn't make sense that she could have lived for two hours after--after that meal. She must have eaten a huge amount more than that because most of it would have--she was alive at around 10:00ish I guess when she had a telephone conversation. So an hour and a half, for example, after eating that meal, a great portion of it would have had to gone out of the stomach. So it would have had to start out much greater than 500, and there would have been more digestion of the rigatoni, making it very difficult to identify. I don't know how intact the rigatoni was. Maybe Dr. Golden is very good at this stuff and can get a little fragment of a pasta and identify it.
No. Umm, however, that's why other people have to be able to look at it. That's why it should have been saved, because the degree of digestion of the rigatoni would be very important, and I think, my view would be that if she stopped eating before 8:30 and had this in her stomach at 10 o'clock, that she ate in-between.
Doctor, did you--I withdraw the question. Doctor, would it be your opinion that the more recognizable the rigatoni, the shorter the interval between the time she last ate and the time she died, assuming she did not have rigatoni after she left the restaurant?
Overruled. He started to answer before you interrupted. Doctor, finish your answer.
The more intact and the more recognizable the rigatoni is, the less digestion there is of the rigatoni, that they're all intact tubes, the closer the death is to the time of eating.
Now, doctor, did you hear or review Dr. Lakshmanan's testimony, if you were not here, in which we reviewed what the literature says; for example, knight's book on stomach emptying as a measure of time since death?
And did you hear at that time from Dr. Knight's book on page 82: "It was assumed that the physiological process of digestion--"
This was used, your Honor, on direct examination of Dr. Lakshmanan. May I--thank you.
"It was assumed that the physiological process of digestion of an average meal lasted some two hours. This is based on the consumption of a test meal of a gruel, hardly--however, hardly a representative example of a modern mixed diet. Moreover, the subjects of experimental work were healthy and presumably free from sudden stress during the experiments. More elaborate descriptions of digestive times of various foods have been drawn up, but they are of dubious value. As an example of the great variations offered, modi gives four to six--"
I'm sorry. "--modi, M-O-D-I, gives four to six hours for a meat and vegetable meal and six to seven hours for a farinaceous meal. Adelson--" and Adelson's book is pathology of homicide; is it not, doctor?
"Adelson stated that the stomach begins to empty within 10 minutes of swallowing, that a light meal leaves the stomach by two hours, a medium meal takes from three to four hours and a large, heavy meal takes four to six hours." Recall hearing that from Dr. Knight's book?
You disagree with his view that it is not appropriate to say that the stomach empties within two hours, correct? You disagree with his view?
I agree with some things and not with other things. A great deal has to do with just deciding how much volume of food and what kind of food is taken in. But my experience has been and the experience of others--even Dr. Knight has this wide variation--is that in a normal healthy person, not under stress as indicated, 90--90, 95 percent, the great bulk of the meal will empty in two hours. That's the way it works.
If you testified in the bent case that a thousand cc's was a heavy meal, then 90 to 95 percent emptying would leave roughly a hundred cc's?
If the stomach contents had passed under your two-hour theory, she would have had about a hundred cc's if death occurred after that two-hour period, right, using the 90 to 95 percent rule that you have?
Except a thousand cc's a huge amount. That's much more than the average meal. That's a quart of food in the stomach. So--but in the bent case, my opinion was as I recollect, that she died very quickly after she ate. He didn't wait around two hours to kill her.
Well, doctor, if 500 cc's is found in Nicole Brown Simpson's stomach and that represents 90 percent passage of a meal, how much would have been in her stomach?
A huge amount when she ate at Mezzaluna. That's why looking in the refrigerator and looking in the garbage and looking in the sink is important to a medical examiner, to see what food was eaten at the house at the scene of death.
And, doctor, isn't that why you've offered those explanations, because you realize that using your theory of stomach emptying means that the time of death for Nicole Brown Simpson is closer to 10:15 than it is to 11 o'clock? Isn't that your change of view to looking in the stomach--I'm sorry--looking in the refrigerator, looking in the garbage can and so forth?
May I briefly--your Honor, two photographs that have been previously marked 75 and 76?
That's the best of my recollection. I didn't tape-record it.
Because I assumed there was no cameramen in the hotel in his room when he did this.
It doesn't make sense that she could have lived for two hours after--after that meal. She must have eaten a huge amount more than that because most of it would have--she was alive at around 10:00ish I guess when she had a telephone conversation.
That's why looking in the refrigerator and looking in the garbage and looking in the sink is important to a medical examiner, to see what food was eaten at the house at the scene of death.