No. I mean, we're a chemistry toxicology unit and we're routinely asked to identify not only a known chemical, but unknown chemicals. A lot of times, we receive evidence that people don't know what the chemical is, and they want us to tell them what the chemical, drug or poison is.

So in a case like that where you're submitted a sample and they just say, "Tell us what's in it," is that, in order of magnitude, harder or more difficult or easier than being told look for this particular compound?

It can be all of the above. In a drug case, if you're given a white powder, a lot of times you will test to see if it's cocaine or heroin. A lot of times, it may not be. In cases we've had in the past where people have sold something purported to be cocaine, it may end up being boric acid, which is a poison. Cocaine is sometimes cut with boric acid. So a lot of times, we may be looking for one thing and it may be another. You really don't know what you're dealing with a lot of times, but we do have the capability in the laboratory to not only identify a chemical that we suspect, but unknown chemicals.

So have you been asked in the past to identify a chemical for the first time?

Yes. On many occasions.

Is that--that's a routine thing?

Pretty much in our unit of the laboratory, the chemistry toxicology, it's fairly routine to identify something that either somebody else can't identify, doesn't have the capability to identify or has never seen before.

In the course of your work for the FBI, sir, as unit chief, do you ever teach mass spectrometry?

Yes, I do. We have a facility out of Quantico, Virginia, and I've been teaching at Quantico probably since about 1980 different courses in mass spectrometry, primarily relating to some of the fields that we do in the unit, arson analysis, toxicology, general chemistry, chromatography classes, explosive classes, a variety of classes in which mass spectrometry is used. And we actually had a course several years ago for the first time where we invited people to do mass spectrometry, and we had a one-week course just on mass spectrometry.

And who was it that you were teaching in that class?

Generally peers, people from other laboratories that are doing forensic chemistry and toxicology.

Would that mean private--private labs such as those run by Dr. Rieders?

Generally for our classes, they're generally government labs. However, we do have symposiums. We're having one coming in arson, and we're going to invite people not only from the government, but from private laboratories.

And in that regard, sir, you indicated that you're a member of currently only one of the forensic organizations noted by counsel. I can't remember which one right now.

It was the Mid-Atlantic Association of Forensic Scientists.

Thank you. Now, in those organizations, sir, do people get together and exchange ideas, the new trends that are happening in toxicology?

Yes, they do.

In the course of your job, sir, do you interact daily with people from around the country and in fact around the world concerning the latest trends in toxicology?

In both chemistry and toxicology, yes, I do.

Is it unusual for a local agency such as Los Angeles to request the assistance of the FBI, the toxicology unit, to assist in performing tests as you did in this case?

No, it is not.

Do you--is it a fairly routine thing for you to be requested by local agencies to perform testing in some regard?

Yes, it is.

Now, you have--you indicated that you testified for the Defense on one occasion?

Yes, I did.

What was that? What was that experience?

It was a murder case in where two police officers were being accused of murder. One of the people they were arresting was killed or died.

And what did you have to do in that case?

It was something that I do--I shouldn't say fairly routinely, but something else I've involved in is drug testing in hair. In that particular case, I had done some drug testing in the victim's hair.

Sir, does it matter to you which side calls you in terms of whether or not you tell the truth?

No. No. Not at all.

Your tests are your tests, your results, your results?

That's correct.

Regarding the validation studies, sir, you indicate that the Quantico's result was that your method of extraction of EDTA recovered 93 percent?

On the average, recovered 93 percent, yes.

Now, do you use the same method of extraction for the evidence stains as you do for the reference sample?

Yes.

So, for example, if you are extracting EDTA from a cloth swatch that has blood from the reference tube of Miss Brown and you are extracting EDTA from a cloth swatch that has the blood from the rear gate, are you using the same method?

Yes, I am.

So whatever amount of EDTA you're leaving behind in the reference stain, you're leaving behind in the evidence stain. Is that a fair statement?

Uh, it--I mean, it's a fair statement. I mean, it wouldn't be exactly a hundred percent. You know, you wouldn't get 93 in this and 93, but it would be relatively the same amount that you would expect to extract, yes.

And what impact, if any, would there be on the ultimate result in terms of the relative degrees or relative amounts of EDTA would there be on any discrepancy in the amount of EDTA extracted from the evidence stain versus the reference sample?

In my opinion, it would have no effect whatsoever. We're dealing with chemicals that are placed in blood at 2,000 parts per million. That is a very, very, very large quantity of any substance in the blood. It's very easy to distinguish 2,000 parts per million from what could possibly be one part per million.

If you notice, I said "Possibly." I'm not even convinced that what was found in my blood and in the sock and in the gate was EDTA. I was not able to prove that. If it is, it's still in the parts per million at the most. And to distinguish between parts per million, one or two parts per million and 2,000 parts per million in chemistry with analytical instruments is very easy to do.

So, sir, then are you saying that the dramatic difference in the results more than compensates for any small degree of variation?

That is correct.

Now, you indicated earlier that you were not trying to quantitate, in other words, you weren't trying to tell us, well, I had precisely these many parts per million of EDTA in evidence stains and these many parts per million in the reference stain. Do you recall testifying to that?

Yes. That's correct. My whole reason for doing this was to differentiate preserved blood from nonpreserved blood.

And for that purpose, sir, is it necessary to quantify with the precision that you were being asked about before, that is to perform tests specifically for quantification?

No, it is not.

Why not?

Because the instrument is--was mentioned earlier, had a full fold--four-fold difference in the 50 part per billion standard. Between one part per million and a thousand parts per million, we have a thousand fold difference. So these are very, very, very different numbers. It's very easy to differentiate between what possibly could be one or two parts per million from what is between 1,000 and 2,000 parts per million.

And so it becomes very obvious without the need for precise quantification?

That's correct.

Let me show you some charts. I would rather--I was going to ask you more about that, but I think maybe we can show it--

Okay.

--better than tell us. Now, you indicated to us I think earlier that you began testing on February 8th?

February 8th was the day that I had someone prepare two samples in the laboratory, one with EDTA and one without from two test tubes of blood that we had in the laboratory from the same person. Those were prepared. I analyzed them with the procedure developed by myself and--at Quantico and analyzed for the presence of EDTA, and I was very easily able to determine which of the stains came from preserved blood.

And how was that?

That was done with the--the first experiment I ran, which is negative ion mass spectrum, and got a 40 sonometer signal for the one with the EDTA and I got no signal for the sample that didn't have the EDTA.

Now, when you did that, sir, were you in possession of the evidence from this case, that is a sock and the gate stains?

No, I was not.

How did you perform that test on what?

It was performed on the blood that we had in the laboratory from a case in which we put on to filter paper.

And how old was that blood?

I think that blood was approximately six months old. It was one of the older cases we had in the unit.

And how did you retrieve an unpreserved sample? You know what I mean? You had obviously a sample from a reference tube and EDTA tube, correct?

In this particular case and a lot of cases, they submit to the laboratory blood in both red stopper tubes and purple stopper tubes. And this particular case, they had submitted both of those samples.

So the red stopper tubes are the ones without EDTA preservative?

That's correct.

Now, you were asked a series of questions concerning that about whether blood in a test tube that has coagulated to some degree, because it's not in preservative, the red cap tube, whether that would affect the finding of EDTA. And in your opinion, would the coagulation of the blood affect any EDTA readings you may get?

Objection. No foundation. No qualification to answer that.

Sustained. Foundation.

Let me put it to you another way. You said that you removed your own blood and put it in a red stopper tube for testing?

Well, I didn't--

Objection. Misstates the evidence.

Sustained. Rephrase the question.

Blood was taken from you and put in a red stopper tube?

That's correct.

All right. And you tested that for EDTA?

Yes.

And you obtained the result that you did?

That's correct.

And when you first began the testing on February 8th, you said you had blood that was in the purple cap tube, that's the EDTA blood, and then you had purple in a red cap--blood in a red cap tube, which is non-EDTA preserved, correct?

Yes.

When you tested that non-EDTA preserved blood in a red stopper tube on February 8th, what result did you obtain?

No EDTA was identified in that particular sample.

And was that blood refrigerated when you got it?

Yes. Well, it was--we refrigerated it at the laboratory, yes.

And in fact, how long had it been refrigerated for?

Approximately six months.

So was it somewhat coagulated when you tested it?

Yes.

And you found no EDTA?

That's correct.

Now, I think you indicated that you then began testing on this case on February 19th?

That's correct.

And when you began that testing, sir, can you tell us how you prepared the samples for testing?

I took cuttings of the samples, very small cuttings, maybe two by two millimeters, and placed those cuttings into a tube to be extracted, and then I also took the known samples of blood and placed with the case of the one blood, placed it on the sock in a controlled area and then placed the other blood on a controlled swatch that I had took similar cuttings from those and compared my results.

Now, you indicated earlier that there were--when you cut samples from the evidence, you make sure to cut them at least as large if not larger than you cut from the reference samples. Do you recall that?

Yes, I do.

Does the Court have scissors?

Of course.

Thank you.

Would you please show the jury--I'm going to give you this post-it and ask you to show the jury how you cut samples for your testing.

You mean the size or how to manipulate the scissors?

The size.

(The witness complies.) These are very large scissors.

What kind of scissors did you use?

A lot smaller.

Smaller ones?

Yeah. I can do it. This is actually a little bit larger than the stain I would have taken (Indicating).

For the record, the witness has placed that piece of paper that he cut onto this legal size paper that I have. I'm going to tape it down so that it will be in evidence.

But that's a little bit larger than the sizes you cut?

Right. Just a little bit larger.

Your Honor.

I wonder if this will show up on the elmo.

It will, but you'll need a size reference. Pencil.

Pencil?

Pencil. I'm sorry? This is just a relative demonstration I assume.

Yeah.

All right.

Looks really big now. So the jury can see, actually it's just a little larger--it looks like it goes--extends just a little bit past the tip of the pen.

Well, it fits well within the lines of the paper.

Thank you, your Honor. That's a better measure.

All right. And you said that's larger than you cut?

Yes.

Now, when you indicated that you cut a larger piece of the evidence sample or as large, but no smaller than the reference sample, what does that accomplish?

Well, that was to ensure that I got at least as much blood from the questioned samples as I did from the control.

And why is that important?

Well, it turns out that it really isn't that important because there is a dramatic difference between the blood with and without EDTA. But I just wanted to make sure that I had at least as much or more of the questioned sample.

And was that an effort to compensate for the issue raised earlier, that if you have more sample, you'll have more EDTA?

That's correct.

Was that really of concern to you in this case?

Not really because it's a dramatic difference between blood preserved with and without EDTA.

So any small variance would be easily compensated for by the cutting method you used?

Yes.

And because of the dramatic differences?

That's correct.

I'm going to show you a graph. First of all, on the 19th, you indicated I think on direct examination that you conducted the negative ion mode?

That's correct.

Now, why was it that you used a negative ion mode?

Well, I selected the negative ion mode because it's a very, very selective technique. Most chemicals will give a positive ion mass spectrum, but most will not give a negative ion mass spectrum. So I selected the negative ion because it's a lot more selective of a technique.

When you mean it's a lot more selective, sir, can you describe it? Can you explain that a little bit?

Well, probably one out of every hundred chemicals that I run will work much better on the negative ion than the positive ion. So its selectively is 99 times greater than that of positive ion in that particular example. Most chemicals that I analyze will not give a negative ion response.

So that already discriminates to a large degree by weeding out those chemicals that will not react to the negative ion?

Exactly. That was my sole purpose.

And you already knew that EDTA would react with the negative ion?

Yes, I did.

And in this graph that we have here--

I guess I'd be asking to mark it as People's 543?

542.

542. Thank you.

All right. Showing you, sir, People's 542 that's now up on the elmo, on the far left of this graph, we have K67 and K68. What are those?

Those were the bloodstains that I prepared from the known blood samples, one on the sock and the other on a piece of cotton or gauze.

I'm sorry?

They were the known samples that I prepared from the K67 and K68 blood samples.

And K67 and K68 refer to which parties?

Those were from Nicole and OJ Simpson.

Now, what do those results indicate to you in terms of the parts per million shown?

Well, that's ion count there. It doesn't show anything about parts per million, but--

Okay. Ion count.

It clearly shows there's an abundance of ions of--for EDTA in both the K67 and K68 samples.

Now, to the right of that, we have Q206 and Q204. What are those?

Those were the samples that I had cut from the sock and the swatch from the gate post, and I treated those the same way I did the K67 and K68 and I analyzed them in similar fashion and did not record any ions for EDTA.

And the one next to the very far right, that says 100 PPM?

That is a standard I ran of a hundred parts per million of EDTA just to ensure that the instrument was working properly.

Okay. What is the--what do you mean when you say "A standard"?

That's a known EDTA sample that I took, put in solution at a hundred parts per million.

And when you run something, a known quantity on the--on the mass spec, what does it help you to determine?

Well, it shows you that the instrument is working properly. That's the main reason that I used it here, just to show that the instrument was working properly.

Did it also indicate to you that you could detect an amount of 100 parts per million at least?

Yes. Uh-huh.

Now, based on the testing you performed on the 19th, what was your conclusion with respect to the question that you were asked as to whether or not any of the evidence in this case, the blood on the gate and the sock could have come from a preserved blood test tube containing EDTA?

It was a dramatic difference between the ion count which I received on K67 and K68 and did not receive any ion count for the 204 and the 206. It's my opinion that the bloodstains on Q20406 and Q206 did not come from preserved blood, EDTA preserved blood which is represented by K67 and K68.

And based then on the testing that you performed on February 19th, you had the answer; is that correct?

That is correct.

But you didn't stop testing?

No, I did not.

Even though you had the answer?

That's correct.

You were shown the letter by counsel from Mr. Harmon in which he requested that you perform the testing?

That's correct.

In that letter, he pointed out to you the language which stated that you were being asked--putting it up again on the elmo. You were being asked to refute the possibility that the stain on the sock could have come from Nicole's reference sample and the same thing with respect to the gate. Sir, did you take that to mean that we were demanding a particular result from you?

No, I did not.

Would it have mattered if you thought we had been?

No, it would not have.

You were going to perform the test you would perform in any event?

That's correct.

And report the result that you got?

That's correct.

Did you take that to mean anything more than the Prosecution's confidence that such items were not planted?

No, I did not.

And so when you went to conduct your test, did you go into it with any bias as to what you would or would not find?

No, I did not.

And did you have any allegiance either way towards what you would or would not find?

No, I did not.

Had you detected evidence that indicated to you that the blood on the rear gate and on the sock did indeed come from a preserved EDTA test tube, would you have reported those results?

Yes, I would have.

And would you have come in to testify to them?

Yes, I would have.

And is that what you found?

That is not what I found.

All right. The record should reflect, counsel, that you're referring to page 2 of Defense exhibit 1263.

Thank you, your Honor.

So after you completed your testing on the 19th and concluded that the blood was not from an EDTA preserved tube, you went on to do further testing?

That's correct.

And why was that?

Well, there had been a lot of talk about EDTA being a preservative and being in fabrics and being everywhere else. So I wanted to be thorough and just to see if I could defect any traces of EDTA whatsoever in bloodstains.

And given what you've been telling us about the EDTA that's in soap and in detergent and in our food, did you have any opinion as to whether or not you thought trace amounts would be found in normal unpreserved blood?

Well, I mean, it's only logical to assume that if a person is eating EDTA, that some of it will be in their blood. The question is, is how much, and that's what I don't think anyone really knows today.

And with respect to the article referred to by Dr. Rieders and the one--and by counsel today, the one from 1954, to your knowledge, that's the only one that does anything in the way of measuring EDTA in the body of a person, correct?

That particular case, it was a carbon 14 study, and they were able to inject EDTA, and they were able to detect up to 30 parts per million in the blood.

And why did you find that article not to be helpful in terms of detecting what a normal level would be in someone's blood?

Because when they did the ingestion study, they only gave the subjects 1.5 milligrams, which is a lot lower than would be suspected or be consumed in the average diet.

All right. I think you indicated on direct examination that people would expect to eat roughly 50 to a hundred milligrams a day of food containing EDTA or EDTA in food?

That was in front of the reference articles that I provided, yes.

And this particular article from 1954, the study had the subjects eating only 1.5 milligrams orally?

That's correct.

And in that case, sir, you would expect to find much less in the blood than if they were eating or ingesting orally the amount that we--the studies have determined we actually do ingest, which is 50 to a hundred milligrams. Would that be a fair statement?

Yes, it would.

Was there any other problem with that article in its applicability to the experiments done in this case?

Umm, only that it did have some conflicting information about the absorption of EDTA.

With respect to the absorption of EDTA, are there different types of salts used in different EDTA forms?

The FDA has authorized the use of three different forms of EDTA to be put into food. This particular study only addressed one of those forms of EDTA.

Now, what's the significance of that?

Well, I don't know to be perfectly honest with you. But unless you test it, you don't know. I mean in the body, they could all be converted to the same thing in the stomach. I don't know for sure how the absorption would change, but until the study is done, you just don't know.

And for that reason, in your opinion, sir, as an expert, would it be appropriate to rely on that article to base any calculations on the amount of EDTA you would expect to find in an average person on any particular day?

I would not use that--that study to try to determine that.

Nevertheless, based on the studies that have been done indicating we all eat 50 to a hundred milligrams of EDTA a day, did you form the opinion that some trace amount of EDTA might be in everyone's blood on any given day?

In my opinion, there would be EDTA in everyone's blood.

Now, when I say "Trace amount," sir, if the substance detected on the rear gate and the sock is EDTA, which I understand you have not concluded, but if that is the case, would you quantify those as trace amounts?

They would be in the parts per million.

Which qualifies for trace amount categorization?

Well, it depends on your definition, but a part per million to most people would be a trace.

And would that amount be consistent with what might be a normal level in someone?

Well, I don't think anybody knows to be perfectly honest with you. It could be, but I don't have any factual information to say that it is or isn't. Only that in my blood, I saw the same indications. But you've got to remember, I don't know that that is EDTA. I have not proved that.

In that regard, sir, did you find--in looking at the results of your testing on the sock, the gate and yourself, did you find certain consistencies in the readings and what the graphs demonstrated to you?

Yes, I did.

And what were those?

It--the one graph demonstrated or some of them did, in my blood, the gate and the sock, there's low levels of an ion that I look for with EDTA, very little levels compared to the EDTA preserved blood. I don't have the explanation as to what they're from. I believe they could be from other chemicals. It could be EDTA or it could be some artifact in the instrument due to some type of matrix effect with the blood.

And in that regard, the fact that it could be another compound, sir, in your opinion, in order to rule out any other compound as being the substance detected on the rear gate and the sock, would it be appropriate in your opinion to look at the Merck index for parent ions of a 292 weight?

Well, what I would not do with the Merck index is just look at compounds with a molecular weight of 292. In my experiment that I conducted, I did daughters of 293. So people may assume that what I'm looking for is all compounds with a molecular weight of 292. But that's not the case.

No. I forgot to ask, what is the Merck index, sir?

The Merck index is a reference book of about 10 thousand common chemicals that are used.

And does that index indicate for each of the compounds that it lists what the ions and what the ion count should be?

Well, no, it doesn't. What it does list though is the molecular weight of the compound. So it's a way that you can determine how many compounds are of a various molecular weight.

And is it referenced only by the parent ion?

Well, there's a lot of different references in the book. You can look up by molecular formula. Some of them you can look up by molecular weight. If you have the computer program, you can do a lot of searches.

Now, you indicated on direct examination that--some point this morning, you received additional compounds of the--of a similar molecular weight to the substance as you found in the evidence on the rear gate and the sock?

Well, in the Merck index, I believe molecular weight 292 and 293, there were probably approximately about 50 compounds that would give those molecular weights. But what you have to consider is, there's probably multi thousand compounds that have a higher molecular weight that you would also have to consider as giving the same results. Now, compound with a lower molecular weight, unless something adds to it, you can pretty much eliminate. But just looking at the Merck index and looking at compounds molecular weight 292 or 293, you can't eliminate all the compounds in the book with higher molecular weights that could give a similar response.

Well, how is that? If it has a higher molecular weight, how is it going to give a similar response to a 292 or 293?

Well, with a mass spectrometer, I'm only allowing that one mass to go through. Now, there's nothing to preclude a compound of a larger mass breaking down to 293 and then breaking down to the 162 or the 160 ion. That's very possible, and that's why I make sure that I do a full daughter spectrum before I ever identify a chemical in mass spectrometry.

When you say a "Full daughter spectrum," what do you mean by that?

Well, with EDTA, when you take the molecular weight or the molecular ion and you bombard it in the second quadrupole, it will fragment to ions. We talked earlier about some of those ions or Dr. Rieders did yesterday, the 160 ion. Well, you also have a 132 ion. And some of the molecular ion passes through the quadrupole, the 293 in this case, the quasi molecular ion. And you not only want those three ions, but you want them at a certain ratio. In this particular case, the 160 is what's called the base peak. That's the largest ion. And then the 293 would be the second largest and the 132. So we not only want all those ions before we identify. We want them in a particular ratio.

Now, scientifically speaking, sir, is it very important to insist that the whole spectrum be shown and in the appropriate ratio before you're willing to identify a particular compound in a court of law or anywhere?

In the chemistry unit, we pretty much require that if we're dealing with mass spectrometry alone. Now, there are other ways to identify chemicals. But if we're doing mass spectrometry, we want a full daughter spectrum. Unfortunately, mistakes have been made in other laboratories where they do single ion monitoring or look for just certain ions. It's a very dangerous practice.

And when you say "A very dangerous practice," by that, sir, do you mean that you may identify a compound, for example, in this case as EDTA when it really isn't?

That's correct.

And in order to guard against that kind of error, is it important then to make sure that the full daughter spectrum is shown?

In my opinion, that is correct, yes.

Was the full daughter spectrum shown in the evidence of the rear gate, the sock or your blood?

No, it was not.

Conversely, sir, was the full daughter spectrum shown in the reference samples from the Defendant and Nicole brown?

Yes, it was.

And for that reason, sir, in your opinion, is it scientifically correct or appropriate to identify the substance in the rear gate and the sock as EDTA in the absence of the full daughter spectrum?

Now, having obtained the negative result for the sock and the gate on February 19th, you said you went on to conduct further testing on February 21st?

The 21st was pretty much to determine the minimum amount of stain I would have to use in order to detect EDTA.

And when you say that, tell us what you mean.

Well, what I did was, I cut out some small--I put five microliters of blood onto a filter paper and I divided that up. So I took--which would be equivalent to .75 microliters of blood, 1. And 2.5 microliters of blood. Then I extracted those samples. And I was able to detect the EDTA in all three samples. And in the one sample that was the smallest, I got the smallest ion count. The one in the middle, I got the middle ion count, and the largest sample I cut, I got the largest ion count. And from that, I was able to determine that the minimum detectable amount of blood will be probably a half a microliter of blood.

Half a microliter?

Yes.

How big a stain is that?

Well, it's probably a little bit larger than the tip of an pencil.

Let's take a brief recess. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll take the mid-afternoon break at this time. Please remember all my admonitions to you. And we'll reconvene at about 10 or 15 minutes. All right.