Well, I want to show you that videotape, but apparently they don't have it right here. Let me ask you a few more questions about collecting biological evidence. Is biological evidence, can it be deposited both through direct and indirect forms?
Well, if I understand the question, a direct deposit would be if I cut myself and then proceeded to drip it--excuse me--at a scene or a location. An indirect--is that the other?
I believe an indirect or potentially secondary transfer of that evidence or stain would be if I was to drip some of my blood onto a piece of cloth or something like that, then that piece of cloth came in contact with something else, thus transferring it a second time.
And do you as a serologist type both kinds of evidence, evidence that was deposited as a result of a direct transfer as opposed to indirect transfer?
If you had a situation where a suspect leaving a crime scene stepped in a pool of blood and then went into a vehicle and transferred that blood into the vehicle, would that be direct transfer or indirect transfer?
Now, if you view the suspect's action as a collection procedure, in terms of collecting the evidence in the pool of blood from the crime scene, would that be a forensically accepted collection technique?
So why is it that in cases where evidence is collected on the bottom of a shoe, you can still go ahead and test it?
Well, the blood is still the blood. I mean, it's a situation where regardless of whether it was dropped directly from a person or transferred from one to another, it still has some significance. You're aware of the fact that it was not dripped there, particularly when you see a smear or something along that line, but there's still information that can be derived from that sample as far as the genetic types that are present.
Was--does the fact that the evidence is collected on the bottom of a shoe change the genetic markers in the evidence?
Let me give you another hypothetical situation. Let's say you had a situation at a crime scene where a cat walked into the crime scene and collected some of the blood by stepping in it with it's paw. Could you collect the evidence off the cat's paw and still test that?
Yes, we could. I would want a control collected from a clean paw to see if the cat contributed anything to it, but you could test it.
Okay. So if evidence at a crime scene could be collected by a house cat, do you think that the criminalists Andrea Mazzola and Dennis Fung were qualified to collect the evidence in this case?
KEY QUOTEI would like to show you the video that's been marked as 1117 for identification.
I know, your Honor, but I'm not going to stop it. We'll just run it all the way through.
Okay. Mr. Matheson, did you notice that she did touch the ground with her right hand, gloved hand?
I would be concerned if her hand touched the ground and then she took--with the glove on and then she took her glove--gloved finger or something and smeared it around in the bloodstain. But with the process of using the forceps or the tweezers, the glove never comes in contact with the evidence itself.
Assuming, sir, that the water in this control eventually migrated over to the stain, would that present a problem?
Well, the water is the exact same water that is being used to dampen the control swatch and dampen the--eventually the swatch you use to collect the bloodstain and the fact that--as you notice, she takes her control very close to the stain. So the substrate or the concrete that it's sitting on is going to be, you know, basically the same under the stain as is under the control. The worse it's going to do is maybe slightly dilute the bloodstain and it may actually start moistening it up and making it easier to collect. No, that's not a problem.
Well, I don't believe that at any point does she take any of those swatches and use them to collect any of the sample. They're left sitting down there--actually they're brushed aside at some point. You're going to drop them occasionally. I mean that's just--that's just the nature of--there's a lot of swatches in that vial. You shake them out, a few are going to fall on the ground. I suppose it could be a minor littering problem if they didn't pick them up when they were done. But as far as the evidence goes, no, it doesn't affect it.
Now she's collecting the stain from the item that was labeled no. 5 in this demonstration?
Are those the kinds of plastic bags that you use at the crime lab when you're collecting stains?
Now we've gotten up to the point where she's already collected the control and the stain from card no. 5?
Have you seen anything up to this point that would cause the results that you obtained to change into someone else's blood?
Has her collection procedure been in accordance with the way that you're training people at the crime laboratory to collect evidence?
And is there any problem with not changing tweezers or gloves between stain 5 and stain 6?
Well, as I mentioned earlier about the gloves, the gloves are not coming into direct contact with the evidence. That's not a problem. If you'll notice, she has cleaned the tweezers several times between each of the steps using--dampening the chem-wipe that I mentioned before, the tissue, with what appears to be water and then wiping the tips of the tweezers or forceps off very carefully.
And is this collected in such a way so that the swatch itself does not come into contact with the gloved hands of the criminalist?
Now, she appears to just have written something on the plastic bag. What do you write on the plastic bag when you're collecting a stain?
Actually depends. Obviously within one envelope--eventually when you're collecting a stain off of something like concrete or off of a surface, you're going to end up with a coin envelope or the manila envelope containing two separate plastic bags with the samples in it. Usually I like to mark either the item number on it or if I don't do that, at least the c on the control plastic bag. However, there have been times where it was very obvious which was my control and which was the stain. The stain was blood colored and very heavy and the control was either relatively clean or kind of a grayish. So it didn't matter whether I marked them or not because it was obvious which was which.
Now, just before this, she dropped a few more swatches. Again, did that present any problem in terms of the collection of stain 6?
No problems with the collection procedure. The only thing that I would-- if this was a training issue or something for us or if we were looking at it, I would suggest that maybe it would be worth going back with another swatch on the evidence sample and collecting up a little bit more blood. But as far as the collection technique itself, it's just fine.
Well, we teach the people to select a swatch size that's appropriate for a stain. If you have an extremely small drip, you don't want to use a real large swatch because then the bloodstain gets kind of diluted out over the swatch itself. If you have a large stain--and theoretically, she could have gone with a larger swatch on that than she had in--you know, that she had chosen. But odds are, that was among the largest one that was in the vial. So instead of going to a much larger one that isn't available, just use multiple smaller ones.
And when multiple swatches are used, is the criminalist supposed to notate how many swatches they used at the crime scene?
Okay. Why is it that you don't have a rule in place that you should notate exactly how many swatches you used on a particular stain?
Because we've never found it to be important to know exactly how much is there. You've got your photograph of the stain. The evidence is the stain that's down there and the swatches are immediate and collected on.
Now, let's say that someone at a crime scene, a police officer, didn't know how to collect a stain, had used a completely improper technique such as taking out a handkerchief and spitting on it to dampen it and then collected the stain using that technique, submit it to you for analysis. Would it still be possible to type even in that extreme situation?
Wouldn't the police officer have arguably introduced some contaminant that could be tested as a result of spitting in the handkerchief?
Well, in a situation like that, if that was the only evidence that we had available to us, we would be able to run the particular stain. I would want to run a control area from the Kleenex and also get some saliva from the particular officer.
Well, what could you do if you had some saliva from the particular officer in order to sort out what the genetic markers were in the person who deposited the stain?
Well, if you had saliva from the person and then that particular marker appeared in the saliva, you'd know the type of the individual who spit onto the handkerchief. This-- how that affects your ultimate interpretation will depend an awful lot on the types that were found in the stain and on the types of the person. It's obviously going to lessen some of the value of that stain, but there's still information there.
Could you still determine whether the genetic markers of the stain were consistent with the suspect even though this collection procedure had been used?
It's possible. It would depend on the types of the people and how the results came out. But it's possible.
But would the spitting actually cause the genetic markers of the suspect in the stain of blood to somehow change or would they still be there?
No, they'd still be there. You'd just be introducing additional information to it in the form of the types of the person with the saliva.
KEY QUOTEAnd does the Los Angeles Police Department serology section in fact type cases routinely where there are mixtures, where there's more than one donor to a particular stain or particular item of biological evidence?
Yes. Every sexual assault case we do by nature, if there's semen present on a sexual assault kit that's collected from a victim, you're dealing with a mixture of body fluids.
And in those kinds of cases, are you still able to test that mixture to determine whether it contains genetic markers that are consistent with the suspect?
We're able to do the tests. However, because of the fact that it's a mixture, our chances of giving a very definitive answer to what's coming from the victim and what's coming from the suspect is less than when you're dealing with just a bloodstain, but there is still information to be derived.
And are there still instances where you're able to find that there's certain markers that are consistent with the suspect, but inconsistent with the victim?
Yes. We do on occasion include suspects based on what we find that's foreign to the victim and could have come from that suspect.
And so in these sexual assault type cases, do you usually get evidence of a mixture from two people?
And then if you get a mixture from two people, what do you have to do in order to figure out which part of the mixture belongs to the suspect and which part of the mixture belongs to the victim?
Your Honor, I'm going to object to this line of questioning. It's irrelevant as to mixed bloodstain.
Now, sir, if bloodstains can be collected by people who are not criminalists, why does the Los Angeles Police Department use criminalists or try to use criminalists in collecting these stains?
Well, a criminalist is not just performing the function of collecting a stain. What we have in our laboratory is what's called a generalist's philosophy where we try and teach a criminalist about all aspects of forensic science. They may specialize in one particular area like toxicology or firearms or serology. But over--through experience and involvement with other criminalists, we try and get them to have a sense of the whole concept of forensics. So by having somebody out there at the scene that works in the laboratory and is acquainted with all the different possibilities that exist, when it comes to analyzing physical evidence, it just enhances the possibility of collecting the best possible evidence.
Now, at crime scenes, does the police department use both criminalist 1's and criminalist 2's and 3's for the purpose of investigating a crime scene?
We send--yes. We send all those out. Matter of fact, we send out at times supervisors and lab directors go also.
And when you send a criminalist 1 to a crime scene, are they paired with someone?
Yes. As long as they're a criminalist 1, which is for the first 18 months of their employment, they will always go with either a Crime 2 or a Crime 3, preferably a criminalist 3.
Well, it's all part of the learning process. We're always learning new things when we're out there and for that first 18 months or so, we try and get them out to as many scenes as possible, exposed to a lot of different conditions and types of scenes, to the variety of techniques that different criminalists have as they go through their career and allow them to then establish their own, you know, mind set or experience to collecting evidence so that when the time comes that they are doing one on their own or potentially training someone else, they have all the experience that is afforded to them.
So what is it that the criminalist 1 is learning in this first 18 months? Are they learning the physical mechanics of how to pick up evidence? Are they learning the mental processes that the criminalist goes through?
Well, they're learning both. It depends on the background of the individual. If we have somebody starting a laboratory that has some sort of forensic background or experience, odds are they've picked up the mechanics. We're going to confirm that the first, you know, couple of times they go out. But, you know they're not difficult techniques. After that, it's a matter of just getting exposed to an awful lot of different ways of looking at a scene, the way of thinking about how to go about processing it and just constantly picking up experience. I still go on crime scenes myself where I learn something from somebody else on either a better way to do it or, you know, thinking about something that I hadn't thought of.
So after the criminalist 1 already knows the mechanical techniques of how to pick up say biological evidence and shoeprint lifts and the like, why is it that you just don't set them loose and let them go to the crime scenes themselves for the remainder of their probationary period?
Well, it's--kind of like we were talking about before. We want them to get as much experience as possible when it comes to how to evaluate a scene. We can teach anybody to go out there and do some of the mechanics, but there's this buffer, this 18 months from the time somebody starts until they are considered crime scene ready or that's a target that we shoot for where you are learning, you're just--like I say, being exposed to new situations, new things, taking in as much information you can about the mind set of investigating a crime scene.
When you say mind set of investigating a crime scene, what are you talking about?
The different philosophies of what type of evidence exists, how to approach the evidence, how to think through and look selectivity that we were talking about earlier as far as trying to find the evidence that's most important to the questions at hand.
Which part of being a criminalist in your experience in terms of investigating crime scenes is more difficult? The mechanical part of how to pick up a piece of evidence or the mental component of what type of evidence to pick up?
Well, it's definitely the mental component because, like I just said, I've been doing it for almost 17 years and I'm still learning stuff out there. I go out to a crime scene and almost always get a little more insight on how to handle a scene.
Now, when the criminalist is at the crime scene, do they have an obligation to investigate whether there have been any alterations in the crime scene?
Their primary function there is the collection of the evidence. The information as to whether or not something has been altered is really not very deep. We sometimes record if like a rescue unit had been in prior and dealt with the scene or something along that line. But normally we have our hands pretty full just looking for the evidence and collecting it, documenting and collecting it so that when it comes to searching down very little bit of information as to whether something was touched or something was moved, no, that's not our duty.
And here there's a little section that says, "Has the scene been altered; if so, by whom and how?" how is that portion of the checklist supposed to be used?
I have always used it and taught other people to use it that it is for gross information. Like I just mentioned, if the rescue unit had arrived prior to our being there because they many times leave things behind that we don't want to collect as evidence if it was brought in after the fact. Such things as if an area was washed down prior to our arrival which does happen sometimes. More of that gross type of information.
And is the criminalist ever supposed to do formal witness interviews of the people to determine whether the scene's been altered so that this area can be filled out?
Now, what about crime scene security? What does the criminalist have to do with providing for security or seeing that security is provided for at the crime scene?
Our major concern when it comes to crime scene security is just like wearing gloves or other protective equipment. I want to make sure that this--excuse me--the scene is secure for my own safety and protection. That's--I'm going to arrive, I'm going to make sure there are officers at the scene or detectives or somebody else that's present. The fact that we're civilian, that's important. As far as making sure that there are--is tape up or officers present to keep out people that may alter the scene, it's not our responsibility to do that. There have been instances where I have been working a scene and somebody has walked through the tape and is like heading into the crime scene or something and I will see it before the officer and I'll point it out, say, "We need to get this person out of here," but that is not my prime focus. My prime focus is in on the evidence and in on the evidence collection.
Now, at a crime scene, is it typical that photographs are taken both before the body is removed and then after the body is removed?
Well, to properly process a crime scene, you want the photographer in there as early as possible before--you know, obviously there are certain things that must occur. If you have a victim, there's going to be an initial responding officer, somebody going in to clear the scene or whatever. That's prior to our arrival. But as far as processing a scene, we want a photographer to go in even before the criminalist to document everything exactly how it is before we get in there and start, you know, moving things around or taking measurements or walking through the scene. We then have the--after the overalls or the general shots are taken, have our individual evidence items photographed, and that can be happening either before or after the bodies are present.
How often is it that a piece of evidence is moved between the before photographs and the after photographs?
Well, there are times where a particular piece of evidence may have some information on it that is needed at the moment, a piece of paper with some writing on it, an item that we want checked for blood or something like that. If the photographer isn't available, there will be times--knowing that the overalls were taken, knowing that the general scene has been placed with photography, we may pick that item up, run a presumptive test on it or, like I said, like a piece of paper with some writing or something and then try to place it back for the close-up picture just prior to collection, and sometimes it's not going to be placed back in the exact same location. And it does occasionally happen too that during the course of your processing, you may accidentally bump something or you may kick it. You try real hard to watch where you're stepping, but sometimes you do get focused on other things that you're doing and evidence does get moved. That's one reason why it's so important to get the photographer in there first because those are the pictures that place the evidence items where they belong or where they were originally, and then the subsequent photography is mainly to identify that item, to get good close-up pictures of it so at a later time, you can compare it to what you have in front of you.
So part of the reason for taking the four photographs is so that if an item of evidence is moved, you can determine exactly where it was initially?
Now, in the testimony that you heard, did you hear some evidence as to a phenolphtalein test being performed on the glove at the Rockingham location?
And is that acceptable from a forensic standpoint and from a crime scene investigation standpoint?
It is. However, it depends on the particular item. If there was an evidence item or an extremely small spot of blood or an extremely small stain that you thought might be blood and that by running your presumptive test was going to consume either all or a major portion of that stain, I would not want the criminalist to run it. I wouldn't run it myself. I would just collect it where you can then do that same test in the laboratory, but on a much more micro scale. However, many times in the field, we do test objects and bloodstains for the presence of blood, and if you have a large stain, you can see an area that's discolored, in this case, the glove, that was showing--because it was a black glove, you didn't necessarily see what was obviously red blood on it.
Sir, would you have done a phenolphtalein test had you been asked by one of the officers there to perform one in the field?
In this particular case, based upon your understanding of the evidence, would doing a phenolphtalein test harm or somehow interfere with the ability to do future testing on that glove?
The only thing it would do would be to remove a small amount of the blood that was present. It would not alter the type any.
Do the criminalists comply with reasonable requests that are asked of them at the officers at the scene?
And would it be reasonable in your estimation under the facts and circumstances of this case as you know them to have requested a criminalist to do a phenolphtalein test on the Rockingham glove?
It's vague. What is, you know, reasonable in a scientific sense, is that what we're interested in?
Generally speaking, at a crime scene, how do criminalists interact with the detective?
What is the relationship in terms of the collection of the evidence between the detective and the criminalist?
As far as the collection of the evidence, that's the domain of the criminalist. Normally when we arrive, the detectives have already been there. They do the walk-through with us. We interact with them, get their opinion as to what they have found, what evidence they are interested in collecting and we note those items either, you know, mentally or on paper, depending on the person, and do a search ourselves. So we try and interact with them, you know, working as a team regarding that aspect of the crime, and that is the scene and the collection of physical evidence.
Now, did you also hear some testimony about a blanket that was at one point brought out for the purposes of covering Nicole Brown?
And what kind of problem would that blanket present if any in terms of the biological evidence at the Bundy location?
Sir, if a blanket were brought out into a crime scene--are you familiar with the layout of the crime scene?
--into the area where the body of Nicole Brown had been laying for the purposes of covering her and then the blanket remained there after she was removed, would that present a problem in terms of the biological evidence that was collected from the Bundy location?
Would that present a problem in terms of contaminating any of the biological evidence?
If a--would depend--it would depend on what the blanket had on it to begin with. If the blanket had, you know, large quantities of blood or had blood on it and then that blood came into contact with something we eventually ended up collecting, then we would have contamination occurring at that point. If it was a clean blanket as far as the biological evidence is concerned and it does not come in contact with the collected evidence item, it should have no effect.
Okay. Well let's assume hypothetically that the blanket had some saliva from the Defendant in this case on it that had dried and did not come into contact with the stains that were collected along the trail. Would the blanket present a problem in terms of contaminating those stains?
The biological stain on the blanket would have to come--somehow come into direct contact with the biological sample that was being collected. And even then, unless there was some moisture present, you would not have significant transfer. If one or both of them was damp and they came in direct contact with each other, then that would be a problem. You would have potential transfer of one body fluid into the other that's contaminating it. But beyond that, it should not have a problem.
And so even in the case of direct contact, you're saying that the biological material on the blanket would probably have to be wet in order for there to be a transfer?
For there to be a significant transfer. I would not like to see that happen and I would be concerned about any sample that that happened to, but the transfer would be significantly less than if one or both were damp.
And if it did not come into direct contact, then you're saying that if we were to assume that the only biological evidence were the hypothetical dried saliva, it would not present a problem?
Now, does DNA tend to fly around in the air at a crime scene and deposit itself wherever it happens to land?
And if you have a crime scene where biological evidence has been deposited by a suspect who was bleeding on a trail of stains, do you expect biological evidence from one stain to migrate to the other stain if we assume that these are discreet drops?
I don't see any way that, if they're discreet drops, how you would get one transfer into the other unless there was something carrying it from one to the other.
Now, did you also hear some evidence to the effect that the glove from the Rockingham location was in a brown paper bag and was brought into the caged-off area where the body of Ron Goldman was located?
And what problem if any does that present in terms of contaminating the crime scene?
Well, merely bringing an item in in a paper bag should have no effect whatsoever on the evidence at that location.
The same thing. You're--it's inside of a paper bag. It's not coming in direct contact with any of the evidence at the scene. I don't see where it would be a problem.
Now, there was also some evidence of some socks being recovered at the Rockingham location. Are you generally familiar with that?
Now, would you expect there to have been flaking from blood encrusted on those socks at the time that they were taken off based upon what you saw?
All right. And were you familiar with the extent to which blood was visible on the socks from the naked eye?
Okay. Now, was there sufficient quantity of blood that you would expect flaking off the socks at the time they were taken off?
Okay. Under what conditions, sir, will blood flake off of clothing, if you know?
Well, if you have--it kind of depends on the quantity. If you have a--well, let me take a step back again on that. By flaking off, I mean, you are going to have the potential of very small minute quantities of blood falling off, which could be called flaking, or if you have a very heavily stained item that has crusts of blood on it, then flaking could be visible chunks of the blood falling off.
Well, when you saw the socks, were there any visible chunks of blood of the kind that you just described that might fall off?
And what did they--did they have that kind of blood, blood that was in sufficient chunks that you would expect it to flake off at that time?
Now, when an item such as the socks is collected in the field, is the criminalist supposed to do a close physical examination of it prior to collection?
There's no rule that says that they have to do a--a close examination of any of the items they collect at the scene.
None other than maybe personal curiosity. If you have an item that you are collecting anyway, there would be no particular good reason to do a very minute examination of that item at the scene.
After you've already made a decision to collect the item, is there any reason from a forensic standpoint to inspect it any further on the scene?
Not in general. If there was some particular piece of information somebody was interested in depriving from, then maybe it would require a closer look. But once it's been decided to collect, then you're going to do that back at the laboratory.
Now, in terms of the removal of the bodies from the Bundy location, do you feel that a decision should have been made to wait until the criminalist had the opportunity to look at the area where the bodies were removed before they were removed?
And how do you go about making that decision as to whether to allow the Coroner in first or the criminalist in first?
Well, normally we like to get in and do our search, get our overall photos, do our search and collect at least all the evidence right around the body or bodies prior to the Coroner's arrival. Our concern is the total scene where theirs is the victim, and we like to get done as much of our work is possible so as to limit--to limit the amount of activity in and out, around that evidence until it's collected.
So how are you balancing the need for them to do their work against the need for you to do your work?
Well, I mean, I'm looking at it from my perspective. From my perspective, the information that we get and the evidence that's surrounding the area is just as important or more so than what they may derive from the bodies at the scene, and I'm going to be protective of that and want to get my work done first before there's any chance of any sort of disruption or contamination caused by--there's a lot of handling involved when the Coroner's office arrives.
So from your perspective, would it have been desirable to wait--have waited even longer before allowing the Coroner's people to have access to the bodies?
Now, we've had a lot of discussion about what Andrea Mazzola's exact job description and title is. Can you tell us what her title is?
And also, there was a description of a mini academy. Are you familiar with that term?
The first time I heard mini academy was in this Court. There is an SID academy, yes.
Well, we refer to it as SID academy. It's a simple way of talking about training courses we have for new people.
Okay. But in terms of an academy, it's not a thing where you sleep in dormitory-style housing for a period of time, is it?
And at the mini academy, are the criminalists trained in how to do the physical collection techniques at a crime scene?
And what other kinds of things come up at that mini academy just in general? I'm sorry. Academy.
Part of that set of training courses is to acquaint new people with what criminalistics is all about. The people that we hire many time are not fully acquainted with forensics, do not have prior forensic experience. So part of that process is teaching them what the other units are about, giving them an overall concept of what criminalistics is.
When you say that they all are not acquainted with criminalistics or forensics, does that mean that you're hiring some people who don't have degrees in criminalistics?
Well, the requirement for the position is a baccalaureate degree in a natural science. And we have many people that have degrees in chemistry, biology, biochemistry. I believe we have one in zoology, one in oceanography. We want people that--or require that people have a degree in a science so that they've learned basic scientific principles and the scientific method and that type of thing, and then we train them within the laboratory about forensics.
And on the 13th of June, were you aware that Andrea Mazzola and Dennis Fung were processing the crime scenes at the Rockingham and Bundy locations?
Is it generally desirable to have more than two criminalists handling a given case in terms of collecting the evidence on a single day?
That's an issue that came up. I'll be very brief. Then I'm moving on to another area, your Honor.
Two is actually a fairly optimal number. I have done many scenes by myself and I feel that that is not the best way to do it. I've done several scene--many scenes with two people, and that is great because you've got somebody working with you, you can bounce ideas off of each other, get assistance when it comes to taking notes, collecting the items. You actually do it quicker and I think better with two. When you get past that into three and even four, which would be excessive, you just have too many people in the scene. Many times, the scenes in a crime that we go out to, the location of them is very limited and you just start getting too many bodies in there, you start bumping into each other and it's not as easy. So two is probably the best number to handle as a crime scene search team.
KEY QUOTELadies and gentlemen, we're going to take a recess at this point for 15 minutes. Please remember all of my admonitions to you; don't discuss the case amongst yourselves, form any opinions about the case, don't allow anybody to communicate with you, do not conduct any deliberations until the matter has been submitted to you. Mr. Matheson, you can step down. You are to return in 15 minutes. We'll stand in recess for 15.
So if evidence at a crime scene could be collected by a house cat, do you think that the criminalists Andrea Mazzola and Dennis Fung were qualified to collect the evidence in this case?
Objection. Argumentative. Silly.
No, they'd still be there. You'd just be introducing additional information to it in the form of the types of the person with the saliva.
Two is actually a fairly optimal number... When you get past that into three and even four, which would be excessive, you just have too many people in the scene.
I still go on crime scenes myself where I learn something from somebody else on either a better way to do it or, you know, thinking about something that I hadn't thought of.