Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 23, 1995 TAG: 9502230091
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Long
Detective Tom Lange, on the stand for a third day, said some of the holes in the case were the fault of evidence technicians and the coroner.
But the detective stoutly defended other decisions that were his own. And the normally placid witness bristled when defense attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr. pressed him on why no test was performed to determine whether Nicole Brown Simpson had been raped.
``In my observation and my experience, sex was the last thing on the mind of this attacker. It was an overkill, a brutal overkill. There was no evidence of rape,'' Lange said, abandoning his usual dispassionate police lingo.
Cochran seemed taken aback and frantically tried to stop the detective's statement with an objection in midsentence, but failed. Court was recessed for the day moments later.
Meanwhile, the only witness the defense has to portray detective Mark Fuhrman as a racist doesn't want to testify, prosecutors said in court papers.
Kathleen Bell became the second key witness to express concern about the heavy publicity surrounding the murder case, and her reluctance raised questions about whether Simpson's lawyers ever will be allowed to question Fuhrman about allegations of racism.
``She ... wishes to insulate herself and her allegations against Detective Fuhrman from public scrutiny by refusing to testify,'' the prosecution said, citing a letter her lawyer wrote to the judge Jan. 27.
The defense has suggested that Fuhrman planted a bloody glove on Simpson's property. According to Bell, Fuhrman once expressed hatred for interracial couples and used the word ``nigger.''
The prosecution sought to have Simpson's lawyers divulge - outside the jury's presence and before Fuhrman takes the stand - any allegations of racism or charges that he planted evidence. Fuhrman could take the stand as early as next week.
Pressed by the defense, Lange defended a series of decisions he made.
``I saw no reason to take a photograph of melted ice cream,'' he told Cochran, who suggested such a photo might help establish the time Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman were stabbed to death outside her condominium.
Lange said he doubted a photo of the Ben & Jerry's container, found on a banister in Nicole Simpson's home, would have helped.
Likewise, he said he did not order photographs taken of nine candles found burning in Nicole Simpson's living room, bedroom and bathroom.
``Did it ever occur to you that by taking pictures of the candles and their state of burning we could extrapolate backwards to the time of death?'' Cochran asked.
``No. I know of no way to do that,'' Lange said.
He acknowledged, however, that he asked criminalist Dennis Fung on June 13 to collect blood from a rear gate of the condo and found out that it was not done until three weeks after the slayings - after the police crime-scene tape had come down.
``If you had known that Fung had not collected blood spots on the back fence, you wouldn't have released that crime scene, would you?'' Cochran asked.
``No,'' Lange said.
Cochran also asked Lange if he was aware that after the police tape was removed about 3:45 p.m. the day the bodies were found, ``they had a number of `lookie-loos' and others, tourists from around the world'' who went to the condo to leave flowers and look at the crime scene.
``Yes,'' Lange said.
Cochran's questioning of the taciturn Lange is part of a long-range attempt to challenge the prosecution's use of DNA analysis to place Simpson at the scene of the June 12 crime. The defense contends that the police were so sloppy that blood and other forensic evidence were contaminated before they were tested.
Prosecutors have told the jury that a trail of blood between the condo and Simpson's estate ties Simpson to the killings. And a prosecutor said last week that the blood on Nicole Simpson's rear gate matches Simpson's.
Touching on his theme that Simpson is a victim of a ``rush to judgment'' by police, Cochran brought out that a criminalist was sent first to Simpson's estate instead of to the crime scene. Lange said the criminalist was sent to test a blood smear on Simpson's Bronco.
Rather than focusing on what was done, Cochran's cross-examination emphasized the absence of evidence. For instance, Lange acknowledged that Nicole Simpson's stomach contents were destroyed by the coroner's office.
``Is that something you wanted done?'' Cochran asked, saying the stomach contents might have helped with the investigation.
``No,'' Lange replied.
The detective also said the victims' hands were not bagged, or specially wrapped, to preserve possible trace evidence.
When Cochran asked if it wouldn't have been best to bag the hands, Lange said: ``That's one way. There are other ways.'' He said one of those ways is wrapping the bodies in plastic, which was, in fact, done.
Cochran also showed the jury a photo of Nicole Simpson's bare back splattered with blood.
``Did you direct the coroner's office to save these blood spatters?'' Cochran asked.
``I pointed those out to the investigator prior to the removal of the victim, yes,'' said Lange, who was present when the autopsies were performed.
``And were you able to determine if those blood spots were ever collected?'' the lawyer asked.
``My information is it was not done,'' Lange said.
by CNB