📄 Direct examination of Douglas Deedrick (part 2) — Friday, June 30, 1995
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▲ Day 107 of 167

Direct examination of Douglas Deedrick (part 2)

Witness: Douglas Deedrick
Examiner: Marcia Clark
Called by: Prosecution • Date: Friday, June 30, 1995 • Utterances: 119
FBI hair examiner Douglas Deedrick testifies that hairs consistent with Nicole Brown Simpson's were found on both gloves, the blue knit cap, and Ron Goldman's shirt and pants — including approximately 35 forcibly removed hairs on Goldman's shirt alone. Marcia Clark closes by posing explicit hypotheticals reconstructing the killer's movements, including pulling Nicole's head back by the hair before attacking Goldman.
1 THE COURT:

Proceed.

2 MS. CLARK:

Thank you, your Honor.

3 MS. CLARK:

In your examination of the hairs collected from the evidence items in this case, sir, did you find any hairs that exhibited the same microscopic characteristics as those of Nicole Brown?

4 MR. DEEDRICK:

I did.

5 MS. CLARK:

And were these head hairs, sir?

6 MR. DEEDRICK:

They were.

7 MS. CLARK:

Where did you find those hairs?

8 MR. DEEDRICK:

These hairs were found on the glove identified as originating from the Rockingham location, a glove found at the Bundy location as well as from the knit hat that was recovered at the Bundy location. Hairs that exhibited the same characteristics as those of Nicole Brown Simpson were also found on the pants and shirt of Ronald Goldman.

9 MS. CLARK:

Now, have you seen each of those items that you've just described, the glove recovered at Rockingham, the glove recovered at Bundy, the blue knit cap recovered at Bundy and the pants and shirt of Ronald Goldman?

10 MR. DEEDRICK:

I have, yes.

11 MS. CLARK:

And I'm going to direct your attention to the monitor.

12 MS. CLARK:

These are items previously marked in evidence, your Honor. Okay. This is People's 55-G.

13 THE COURT:

All right. 55-G appears to be a photo of the Rockingham glove.

14 (Brief pause.)
15 MS. CLARK:

And this is People's--

16 MS. CLARK:

Do you recognize this item as well, sir?

17 MR. DEEDRICK:

Well, that looks like a glove at a crime scene.

18 MS. CLARK:

Okay. Does it look like one of the two gloves that you saw in this case?

19 MR. DEEDRICK:

Well, one of the gloves I did look at came from the Bundy crime scene. I believe this is that glove.

20 MS. CLARK:

This is People's 45-A.

21 THE COURT:

All right. Appears to be the Bundy glove.

22 (Discussion held off the record between the Deputy District Attorneys.)
23 MS. CLARK:

This is kind of hard to see. The photographs on the screen now is People's 56. It's a laser and a little difficult to see, your Honor. I'm going to ask to zoom it in on the elmo if I can.

24 MS. CLARK:

People's 56-I, do you recall you indicated earlier that on August 8th, one item of the actual fabric itself was transported to you, you remarked the blue knit cap. Does this appear to be that cap?

25 MR. DEEDRICK:

It does, yes.

26 MR. FAIRTLOUGH:

Your Honor may need to cut the feed for this photo.

27 MS. CLARK:

People's 43-F.

28 MS. CLARK:

And the pants and shirt belonging to Ronald Goldman, do you recall having seen those items, sir?

29 MR. DEEDRICK:

Yes, I do.

30 MS. CLARK:

And do those appear to be them?

31 MR. DEEDRICK:

They do.

32 MS. CLARK:

And those are the items on which you found the head hairs of Nicole Brown that appear to exhibit the same microscopic characteristics as those of Nicole Brown?

33 MR. BAILEY:

May we approach, your Honor?

34 THE COURT:

No.

35 MR. DEEDRICK:

Yes. There were hairs that were found on these items that exhibited the same microscopic characteristics as the known hairs submitted to me from Nicole Brown Simpson.

36 MS. CLARK:

And I have a board here, your Honor, I ask be marked next in order, People's 4--

37 THE COURT:

475.

38 MS. CLARK:

475?

39 (Peo's 475 for id = board)
40 MS. CLARK:

I'm going to remove the strip concerning Nicole Brown revealing the results testified to by Mr. Deedrick.

41 MS. CLARK:

Did any of the hairs that you found on either of the gloves or the clothing of Mr. Goldman appear to be forcibly removed?

42 MR. DEEDRICK:

The one hair on the Rockingham glove did appear to be forcibly removed. It's approximately 12 inches long and was broken at the proximal end or at the end nearest the point of attachment near the skin. The hairs from Ronald Goldman's shirt, which was my Q23, there were about 35 forcibly removed hairs exhibiting the same microscopic characteristics as those of Nicole Brown Simpson.

43 MS. CLARK:

And what about the hairs that were on the Bundy glove? What did those hairs look like?

44 MR. DEEDRICK:

They were--they were fragments. They were--actually it was a treated head hair fragment.

45 MS. CLARK:

And when you say fragments, what does that mean?

46 MR. DEEDRICK:

Well, it's a portion of a hair. There was no root present on the hair.

47 MS. CLARK:

What about the hairs that could have come from Nicole Brown that you found on Ronald Goldman's pants and knit hat? What did those hairs look like?

48 MR. DEEDRICK:

They were fragmentary as well, under--under three and a half inches. No roots were present on any of these.

49 MS. CLARK:

Were they naturally shed?

50 MR. DEEDRICK:

No. Naturally shed hair will have a root that has a club shape like I previously testified to, and none of these had roots of that condition.

KEY QUOTE
51 MS. CLARK:

None of these--in other words, none of the hairs that could have come from Nicole Brown had the appearance--roots the appearance of which would show that they were naturally shed?

52 MR. DEEDRICK:

They did not.

53 MS. CLARK:

Did you prepare a chart depicting the microscopic appearance of the hairs, the known head hairs of Nicole Brown and the hairs that you determined could have come from her from the evidence items?

54 MR. DEEDRICK:

I did.

55 (Brief pause.)
56 THE COURT:

Mr. Fairtlough, we may need to raise that up.

57 MR. FAIRTLOUGH:

This is as high as this particular easel goes unless I swap easels.

58 THE COURT:

Let's swap easels because the bottom is obstructed by the projector here.

59 (Brief pause.)
60 THE COURT:

Mr. Escobar, you need to move that back as far as you can so you don't block the witness. All right. 2:30. Can you see that? 165, can you see that?

61 JUROR NO. 165:

Yes, sir.

62 THE COURT:

Thank you. Miss Clark.

63 MS. CLARK:

All right. Now, does this depict all of the hairs Nicole Brown--Nicole Brown's known exemplar that you determined to exhibit the same microscopic characteristics as the hair recovered from the evidence in this case?

64 MR. DEEDRICK:

I don't believe all of the hairs. The questioned hairs were photographed that are represented on that board.

65 MS. CLARK:

Is this a representative sample of what you saw under the microscope?

66 MR. DEEDRICK:

It is, yes.

67 MS. CLARK:

If you would, sir, could you please step down and explain to the jury what it is that you saw that was significant to you to cause you to come to the conclusion you did with respect to the hairs that are depicted on this board that I'd ask be marked People's 476.

68 THE COURT:

476.

69 (Peo's 476 for id = board)
70 (The witness complies.)
71 MR. DEEDRICK:

With respect to questioned hair no. 1, it was a 12-inch long hair that was recovered from the--identified as recovered from the Rockingham glove. I photographed an area of the known, which was K4, known sample no. 4 from Nicole Brown Simpson, an area from the Rockingham glove again, that being Q1. Always keep in mind that these photographs are about 250 magnification, and I'm just representing an area that appeared to me to be similar microscopically. I'm not trying to do an entire hair examination for you. I'm just trying to represent what the area that I saw that exhibited the same characteristics. The hair also appeared to be lighter in certain areas. The hair from--another hair from the Rockingham glove had some coloration to it or bleaching or something that altered the color and made it lighter. So that's another hair that was recovered from the Rockingham glove. 7B was recovered from the Bundy glove. Again, that was I believe about six inches long or so and it did not have a root. As you can see, there's a range of color as people have depending on the hairs that you're attempting to compare. K4 is an area that has been very light--lightened, again artificially lightened hair that was recovered. This is the same hair, an area of one portion of the hair and the area of the hair which is further out nearest to the tip. This known sample was compared with Q23. And again, I mentioned that there were about 35 hairs to compare it to, but this is just one of the hairs. The last photograph depicts the condition of the roots that were present in both the known sample and the questioned sample. Again, this just indicating how a hair would look if it's been forcibly removed. The reddish substance that you see appears to be blood.

KEY QUOTE
72 MS. CLARK:

Now, you earlier spoke to us about the range of characteristics that you'll find on the head of any individual. Do these hairs that you photographed here from the known sample of Miss Brown exhibit that range of characteristics you spoke of?

73 MR. DEEDRICK:

Yes. You can see that there's a range, that not all hairs are all--are duplicates of each other, that some hairs are lighter, some hairs are darker, some hairs have medullation, some hairs don't. It just depends upon the range of characteristics of that individual. And here you see that an area of the hair that probably was down a little bit further near the base was a little bit darker whereas some hairs were lighter in certain portions of the hair. This particular--this piece of hair that was recovered from--identified as coming from the Rockingham glove would have been probably a more distal portion out towards the tip as opposed to a full-length hair which would indicate a darker portion of the hair, the same thing with the hair fragment that came from the Bundy glove (Indicating). It's probably a distal portion as opposed to something that's nearer to the base of the hair.

74 MS. CLARK:

When you say "The base of the hair," what end is that?

75 MR. DEEDRICK:

That's proximal, nearest to the skin.

76 MS. CLARK:

To the scalp?

77 MR. DEEDRICK:

That's right, where it's attached.

78 MS. CLARK:

Now, you indicated earlier in your testimony that when you do a hair examination, you look through the whole length of the hair, the entire hair, correct?

79 MR. DEEDRICK:

Right. You look through the--everything you have to compare. Some hairs may be three and a half or less. Some hairs may be 12 inches like in this particular case. So that when a comparison--the comparison process involves looking for hairs in the known sample that compare both by the length and how the characteristics change along the length and also doing regional type comparisons if you have portions of hair, that is if the hair portion--if the question is, could this portion of hair come from that individual, the comparison would be with areas of the hair that have the same microscopic characteristics, which might be out at the end of the hair. So the comparison is based on what you have.

80 MS. CLARK:

Now, you indicated that this was like 250 times magnification?

81 MR. DEEDRICK:

It's approximately 250 times, yes.

82 MS. CLARK:

So do these photographs depict the entire length of the hair that you saw when you performed your examination?

83 MR. DEEDRICK:

No. If I did--for instance, if I--if I'd wanted a photograph--serial photographs of each section of that hair, it would be about 25 feet long. So we don't do that. We just try to take an area that--that appears to represent the conclusion that--that's being drawn from that comparison.

KEY QUOTE
84 MS. CLARK:

Okay. You only photographed I think on this board two of the hairs you determined to exhibit the same microscopic characteristics as Nicole Brown on the Rockingham glove. In this board, they're both labeled Q1 on the far left as I face it?

85 MR. DEEDRICK:

That's right.

86 MS. CLARK:

How many hairs did you actually find on the Rockingham glove that exhibited the same microscopic characteristics as the hairs of Nicole Brown?

87 MR. DEEDRICK:

I believe there were four were recovered from that item.

88 MS. CLARK:

Can you describe what those hairs on the Rockingham glove looked like?

89 MR. DEEDRICK:

As I said, the one was approximately 12 inches long and it was broken at the proximal end or nearest to where the hair attaches itself to the scalp. The others were fragments. Again, I don't recall the exact length, but they were shorter fragments.

90 MS. CLARK:

Is there any significance to the fact, sir, that you found the same microscopic characteristics in several questioned hairs, that is hairs collected from the evidence in this case as the known standard for Nicole Brown?

91 MR. DEEDRICK:

Well, the more associations that are made between hairs that vary a little bit in characteristics, the more significant that association is because you're associating different hairs that also appear in the known sample.

92 MS. CLARK:

How many hairs did you find that exhibited the same microscopic characteristics as those of Nicole Brown on the Bundy glove?

93 MR. DEEDRICK:

There was one.

94 MS. CLARK:

And how many hairs did you find on Mr. Goldman's shirt that exhibited the same microscopic characteristics as those of Nicole Brown?

95 MR. DEEDRICK:

There were approximately 35 on the shirt.

KEY QUOTE
96 MS. CLARK:

Were they forcibly removed or naturally shed?

97 MR. DEEDRICK:

As I said, they were forcibly removed.

98 MS. CLARK:

What in your experience, sir, could account for the hairs that exhibited the same microscopic characteristics as those of Nicole Brown on Ron Goldman's shirt?

99 MR. DEEDRICK:

Either a primary or a secondary transfer. Either came there directly from the head of Nicole Brown Simpson or they were transported there as a secondary transfer.

KEY QUOTE
100 (Brief pause.)
101 MS. CLARK:

You may resume your seat.

102 (The witness complies.)
103 MS. CLARK:

All right. Sir, I would like to pose for you a hypothetical if I may. You indicated that the finding of hairs that exhibited the same microscopic characteristics as those of Nicole Brown on Ron Goldman's shirt could be there by primary or secondary transfer. If you were to assume the following events, sir. That the killer pulled back Nicole's head with his hand, with his left hand in order to slit her throat with his right hand and then went over to Ron Goldman for final attack, touching him in the process with the hand that held Nicole's hair by the head, could that account for the hairs that you found on Ron Goldman's shirt?

104 MR. BAILEY:

Object. He hasn't qualified in this area.

105 THE COURT:

Overruled.

106 MR. DEEDRICK:

Yes. That could account for the presence of those hairs.

107 MS. CLARK:

You also indicated that you found more hairs that exhibited the same microscopic characteristics as those of Nicole Brown on the Rockingham glove than on the Bundy glove, correct?

108 MR. DEEDRICK:

That's correct.

109 MS. CLARK:

Now, are you aware that the Bundy glove was found at the scene of the crime of the murder?

110 MR. DEEDRICK:

I am, yes.

111 MS. CLARK:

And that the Rockingham glove was found at the Defendant's residence?

112 MR. DEEDRICK:

I am, yes.

113 MS. CLARK:

What does that finding indicate to you based on your experience with respect to how long each of those gloves remained on the hands of the killer during the murders?

114 MR. BAILEY:

Well, I object. Foundation.

115 THE COURT:

Sustained.

116 MS. CLARK:

You indicated earlier, sir, that with respect to fibers, they have--they move freely, more freely than hairs, correct?

117 MR. DEEDRICK:

Yes. They do transfer more easily.

118 MS. CLARK:

Let me pose this to you in the form of a hypothetical. If the killer, while wearing both gloves, launched an initial attack on Nicole by knocking her unconscious, having very limited contact with her in that initial contact and the subsequently lost the Bundy glove early in the struggle with Ron Goldman, could that account for the fact that you found more of the hairs that exhibited the same microscopic characteristics as Nicole Brown's hair on the Rockingham glove than on the Bundy glove?

119 MR. BAILEY:

Objection. Speculation.

Temperature

tense

Key Quotes (5)

Douglas Deedrick
There were approximately 35 on the shirt... As I said, they were forcibly removed.
35 forcibly removed hairs consistent with Nicole's on Goldman's shirt is a powerful quantity — suggests violent, sustained contact between Nicole and whoever touched Goldman afterward.
Douglas Deedrick
The reddish substance that you see appears to be blood.
Said matter-of-factly while describing root condition of forcibly removed hairs — quietly devastating detail delivered in technical context.
Douglas Deedrick
Either a primary or a secondary transfer. Either came there directly from the head of Nicole Brown Simpson or they were transported there as a secondary transfer.
Sets up Clark's hypothetical about how Nicole's hairs ended up on Goldman's shirt.
Marcia Clark
If you were to assume the following events, sir. That the killer pulled back Nicole's head with his hand, with his left hand in order to slit her throat with his right hand and then went over to Ron Goldman for final attack, touching him in the process with the hand that held Nicole's hair by the head, could that account for the hairs that you found on Ron Goldman's shirt?
Clark narrates the prosecution's theory of the murders directly through a hypothetical — the most explicit reconstruction of the killing in the trial to this point.
Lance A. Ito
No.
One-word denial of Bailey's request to approach — sets the tone for how the court manages defense interruptions during this testimony.

Evidence (6)

People's 55-G
Photograph of the Rockingham glove
displayed on monitor, identified by witness
People's 45-A
Photograph of the Bundy glove at crime scene
displayed on monitor, identified by witness
People's 56 / 56-I
Photograph of the blue knit cap (laser image, difficult to see)
displayed, zoomed in on Elmo, identified by witness
People's 43-F
Ron Goldman's pants and shirt
displayed on monitor, identified by witness
People's 475
Board showing hair examination results for Nicole Brown Simpson
marked in evidence, strip revealed during testimony
People's 476
Board with microscopic photographs of known and questioned Nicole Brown hair samples at ~250x magnification
marked in evidence, witness stepped down to explain to jury

Notable Exchanges (4)

F. Lee BaileyLance A. Ito
Bailey asked to approach the bench mid-identification of Goldman's clothing; Ito denied with a single word: 'No.'
terse
Marcia ClarkDouglas Deedrick
Clark posed a detailed hypothetical narrating the killer pulling Nicole's head back to slit her throat, then transferring hairs to Goldman. Deedrick confirmed it could account for the findings. Bailey objected on qualification grounds and was overruled.
strategic
Marcia ClarkDouglas Deedrick
Clark posed a second hypothetical explaining why more Nicole hairs were on the Rockingham glove than Bundy glove — suggesting the Bundy glove was lost early in the Goldman struggle. Bailey objected as speculation; transcript ends before ruling.
strategic
Lance A. ItoMr. FairtloughMr. Escobar
Extended pause to swap easels and reposition the hair comparison board so juror 165 and the witness stand could both see it clearly.
procedural

Light Moments (2)

Lance A. Ito
Ito asks juror 165 directly: 'Can you see that? 165, can you see that?' — juror confirms. A rare moment of the judge checking in with the jury by number.
Douglas Deedrick
Deedrick explains that serial photographs of a 12-inch hair at 250x magnification would be 'about 25 feet long' — a moment of scientific absurdity delivered deadpan.

Witness Demeanor

(The witness complies.) — steps down to address jury at hair comparison board
(The witness complies.) — resumes seat after jury presentation
(Brief pause.) — multiple times during exhibit transitions

Objections

3 objections (1 sustained, 1 overruled)
Proceeding 6619 • 119 utterances • Prosecution witness
Criminal Trial
Department 103
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📂 JUN 30, 1995 📄 Direct examination of Douglas
JUN 30, 1995 KRT DvH TD