Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 11, 1995 TAG: 9505110123
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
Presenting to jurors the prosecution's most damaging physical evidence, Robin Cotton, laboratory director for Cellmark Diagnostics of Germantown, Md., also testified that DNA tests matched his slain ex-wife's blood with a drop found on a sock that police retrieved from O.J. Simpson's bedroom on the morning after the June 12 murders.
The genetic matches support the prosecution's theory that the defendant cut his finger in a struggle as he stabbed to death Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, then fled to his nearby estate, where he changed out of his bloodstained clothes, leaving the socks beside his bed.
Cotton, whose laboratory conducted tests on the blood for the prosecution, said she also saw the defendant's genetic markers in a drop of blood found in the foyer of his house - suggesting he was still bleeding as he returned home that night.
O.J. Simpson studiously avoided looking at the DNA results displayed on either the large screen above Cotton or at the computer monitor on the table a few inches in front of him, while defense attorney Robert Shapiro, sitting nearby, winced at Cotton's testimony. Her long-awaited conclusions followed more than two days of painstaking testimony about the methods of genetic testing.
Defense attorneys have argued that the blood might have been planted by conspiratorial police detectives seeking to frame the actor and former football star. An alternate defense explanation is that incompetent criminalists mishandled the evidence, rendering it useless for testing and analysis.
``Not damaging at all,'' is how defense lawyer Johnnie Cochran described Cotton's testimony when questioned by reporters outside court Wednesday. ``I think you've got to hear all the evidence,'' he said, adding: ``We're going to deal with it on cross examination and with our witnesses.''
``Conspiracy, corruption, incompetence - we will offer the jury several alternatives that add up to reasonable doubt,'' said Alan Dershowitz, one of Simpson's defense lawyers.
The defense will get its opportunity to challenge Cotton later this week. But Wednesday the courtroom belonged to the soft-spoken but authoritative-sounding lab expert as she interpreted for jurors a black and white X-ray photograph showing a series of DNA band patterns, which somewhat resemble the bar codes on supermarket items.
On one X-ray, Simpson's distinctive type clearly showed two sets of three parallel lines lying closely together, like hatch marks, followed by a single line at the bottom of the lane.
Cotton said the lab used computers to determine the exact positions of the bands. Based on the visual and computer analysis of the markers, she said the bands of the two drops ``match'' Simpson's.
Prosecutors displayed an X-ray showing Simpson's blood type alongside those of Nicole Simpson and Goldman. Their patterns were clearly different, with different lines in distinct locations.
Then prosecutors showed an X-ray illustrating the types of those three individuals next to the types for the two blood drops, both of which showed patterns identical to Simpson's. The X-ray looked like an aerial photograph of an old railroad yard, with ties missing from the precisely the same spots on three parallel tracks.
The X-ray allowed prosecutors to present jurors a dramatic picture of the source of the dark, circular blood spots they have seen in photographs for nearly four months. One drop was found on a terra-cotta tile pathway a few feet from the victims' bodies. The other was lifted from the polished wood floor inside Simpson's home, two miles from the crime scene. Their DNA patterns look identical on the X-ray.
Prosecutors told jurors during opening statements in January that they would show that Simpson left his blood at the murder scene and trailed his victims' blood into his car and onto his property. But Wednesday was the first time jurors have heard prosecutors provide the test results that establish that crucial link.
by CNB