Original subtitles

Time was 2.40.54am.

OK, and if you would, please,

go ahead and describe to the jury

what you did as it related to

the call that you received at that time.

I answered a 911 call from a man who stated that there was

an accident at his house.

And I asked him what kind of accident,

he said his wife had fallen down some steps.

I asked him at that time if she was breathing and he said yes.

I then asked him how many steps she fell down. He said,

"I don't know", and I asked him again, and he said, "15 or 20."

He was doing some crying and stuff in the background,

and then I asked him again, "Sir, is she still breathing?"

And he said, "Yes", and he eventually disconnected. OK.

I take it over the course of five years you've answered

lots of 911 calls. Yes, of course.

And heard lots of different people asking for help. Yes.

And heard people who call up calm,

people who call up excited and everything in between.

Yes.

And the way you described Mr Peterson on that tape...

Objection.

Overruled. ..was as hysterical, right?

Very upset, yes. Well, you actually said hysterical. Hysterical.

Indeed, that's what you put on that CAD form. Yes.

Cos that's how he struck you? Yes. That's all I have, thank you, ma'am.

You have no way of knowing whether he was feigning

all those actions and noises on his end of the phone call, do you?

No, sir. No other questions.

TAPE PLAYER CLICKS

'911, what's your emergency?

'1810 Cedar Street, please!

'What kind? My wife's had an accident, she's still breathing.

'What kind of accident?

'She fell down the stairs. She's still breathing, please.

'Is she conscious? What? Is she conscious? No, she's not conscious.

'How many stairs did she fall down? Huh?

'How many stairs? Stairs? How many stairs?

MICHAEL PANTS AND MOANS

'Calm down, sir.

'Calm down. Oh, 15, 20, I don't know. Please!

'Get somebody here right away, please!

'OK, somebody is dispatching the ambulance

'while I ask you questions.'

'It's in Forest Hills, OK? Please, please!

'Sir, somebody else is dispatching the ambulance.

'OK, is she awake now?

MICHAEL SOBS

'Hello?

'Hello?'

WHIMPERING

LINE GOES DEAD

'Hello, 911, where is your emergency? Where are they?!

'1810 Cedar. She's not breathing, please, please!

'Would you hurry up! Sir, sir, do not hang up, they are on the way.

'Can you tell me for sure she's not breathing? Sir?

LINE GOES DEAD 'Hello? Hello?

'Damn.'

Now, we hear the dial tone,

and I think we show that in the transcript...

on two occasions. What does that mean?

It would mean that the call was terminated. On which side?

It would be on the caller's side.

OK. Your Honour, I have no other questions.

The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba by Handel

This is the other piece I wanted to play at the, eh... At the funeral.

It's just a wonderful piece of music.

Invitation to the Dance.

Everything.

Margaret, Martha, you guys...

Everybody involved, it's just awful.

Awful! As if the death wasn't enough, and all the rest of it.

But that's when I channel it into other things.

Yeah, distract yourself and... Mm-hmm.

And you're always doing things, busy. Yes.

A great deal of selfishness and ego goes away with age.

You can't help it.

You watch yourself get old and ugly and fat and stupid.

The ego declines. It should, anyway.

And so you worry more about other things, other people.

The ones you love. The dogs!

HE CHUCKLES

I'm mostly just worried about, you know, how you're doing. I know.

And yeah, mostly just coping with everything. I cope pretty well.

Where's my lighter here?

Yeah, well, you haven't got any choice, it's one of those things.

That's what I've always believed.

Can't do anything about it, why worry about it?

Which is, you know, pretty much how Kathleen felt,

and what we're trying to get Becky to feel.

Hey, if you can't do anything... Can't do a fucking thing about it.

Fuck it, don't worry about it. Can't change anything.

It's like worrying about... anything.

Gee, I mean, worry about dying - well, don't,

because you're going to die!

So what's the point in thinking about it?

No, I think I cope pretty well with it.

You going to be all right? MICHAEL SIGHS/TODD LAUGHS

Yes, I'm going to be fine, thank you very much.

Jesus! Sorry, Dad.

The more you worry about me, the more worried I get! Stop it.

Well, you know... Let me worry about you, hm?

God. HE LAUGHS

Hm?

Those appear to be the shorts Mr Peterson had on the night...

The front and the back... Yes, sir.

At this point we'd move into evidence

what's marked State's Exhibit 4A.

The victim was dressed in sweats.

She had on a sweatshirt and sweatpants.

I observed that, again,

what appeared to be large quantities of blood all over the floor,

all over the victim, her hands, feet, her clothing,

the walls, there were paper towels around the body and there was

a towel under her head.

What was the condition of the blood on the floor? It was dry. OK.

Could you tell what the condition of the blood was on the stairs?

It was dry.

What was the condition of the blood on the walls of the stairway,

if you could see that? It appeared to be dry.

It appeared to have been either wiped or smeared.

The first thing that came to me,

with the amount of training I've had,

from what I observed in the stairwell, this did not

appear to be what I would have considered a fall down the steps.

Mr George, I want you to come down,

I don't want you to narrate anything,

I just want you to look at the videotape.

You actually made the videotape?

Yes, this is a copy of the videotape I made the evening of the 9th.

See ya.

Well, let me talk about that issue a little bit, you have all

this testimony from these officers saying the blood appeared dry.

None of them touched the blood, they said it appeared dry.

Yet, on cross-examination,

they all agreed that they didn't put any of that in their report.

What we really need in this case are the experts to tell us how long

does it take for blood to dry,

how long does it take for it to dry on plaster,

how long does it take for it to dry on wood, and how long does it take

for a pool of blood versus a spatter of blood versus a cast-off stain?

These are... OK.

TRAIN HORN BLASTS

You know, when I look at what we can get out of George,

it seems to me that whatever I can do to establish

that there have been changes in the scene, wherever they are,

changes in the blood,

changes in the things that have blood on them...

once we do that, then it's not a very big jump to the fact

that nothing in that stairway can be relied upon.

And there's a great quote from Epstein's blood spatter...

Actually, it's from the North Carolina

Justice Academy Blood Spatter Interpretation Manual.

"It is vital that the crime scene be preserved in absolutely

"its original condition

"whenever any blood stain pattern interpretation is to be done.

"Even the movement of a single blood-stained object in

"the scene can significantly affect the interpretation

"of the spatter patterns."

And then I thought I'd get into...

some of these photos. And that's where we'd get into...

The photos where there's differences,

not the direction of blood spatter photos?

No, not the direction of blood spatter stuff.

Well, we know that it happened...

We know the pictures were taken by the 10th.

And some of them were taken on the 9th,

because they actually have the date on them. Right. So, for example...

We've got the photo next to the oven,

and there's actually two things changed about that.

A drop disappears and another drop is added. Right.

You know, what I love is that these two pictures

don't have any date on them.

They have no date. So when were these taken?

That's what we'll start with.

This is a picture right here of the area right by the sink, right?

And can we go to the next photo?

That's a close-up of the same area, is it not? Yes, it is. All right.

Now, what we have here is a side-by-side comparison

of those two areas, you see that? I do.

You see that little spot right there? Yes, sir, I do.

That's not there, is it? No, it isn't. Do you know why?

During our processing, if you also notice right in the centre

of the picture on the right, there is a little stain there also.

That one? Yes, sir.

And that's missing on there. Right.

So on each photo you have a stain that's not on the other photo.

I was explaining that when those photos were processed,

that was part of a photo glitch there in the centre.

Photo glitch? That was in the processing,

something happened in the processing.

So that's not really a blood stain there? No, sir, it is.

How would someone looking at that know that? They wouldn't.

Did you note it anywhere?

No, sir. And that's a glitch too? I don't really know.

Well, you don't...? I did not process those pictures.

Well, how do you know this is a glitch then?

I was explained that later on. Who explained that to you?

I don't really recall who did it right now.

Do you know how many glitches there are in the photos? No, sir.

That's the only two that I've observed.

Ron found a number of photos where there are

really small differences, but very significant differences.

Uh, between two photos taken of the same object by the police, at a time

when Michael Peterson was in a den somewhere under police watch

or else out of the house.

Their experts look at things like this, these things with

numbers here, and they say, "Well, you see,

"that's a skeletonised blood stain.

"That means someone tried to clean up this area,

"and what happened was the blood stain was very dry

"on the outer ring, cos that's where it dries first,

"and much less dry in the middle, and so when someone came through

"and tried to clean it, all they wiped up was the middle."

Well then, when you go back to another photo -

and both of these were taken on 12/9, the same day -

and you look at these same blood stains,

they're completely filled in.

And so to the extent their expert is saying,

"Oh, there was clean-up here,"

well, if there was clean-up, it was clean-up by the police,

not by Michael Peterson.

And that's the kind of thing I think that really creates questions

in the minds of the jurors.

Would you want to bet your own life on the competence

of Dan George and the Durham crime scene investigators?

Because if you wouldn't want to bet your own life on them,

then don't bet Michael Peterson's life.

See that area right there? Yes, sir. Let's blow that up.

That's that area, right? It appears to be, yes, sir.

And you see there's sort of a skeletonised series of blood stains?

I see that, yes, sir.

All right, let's take a look at another photo of that same step.

Now, if we look at the area here and compare it with the area here,

there are some differences,

aren't there?

It is. For example,

that one right there is skeletonised,

that one right there is full, that's partially...

Hold on, Tom.

That's partially skeletonised and that's full, right? Yes, sir.

And the police took both of these photos, right?

That's correct.

Mr Peterson wasn't in the stairway doing anything

between the taking of these photos, right?

No. Do you know which photo was taken first?

I do not.

Well, do you have an explanation for why they're different?

I don't have an explanation for it.

Are you thinking that that's a glitch? No, sir.

This is contamination in the crime scene, right?

And there you see Rudolf continuing his attack on the witness,

who is basically helping the state

support the integrity of that crime scene.

Do you have a question for Jean about the crime scene?

I did, I'm still bothered by the fact that there were footprints,

I believe, in the kitchen, and the blood had been cleaned up,

and I still have not seen an explanation

of when they were cleaned and why.

Jean, before we go to break, I want to ask you another question -

are you telling me that bloody footprints were cleaned up... What?

..before the police arrived?

I think we have to assume at this point... What?!

..the prosecution is going to say they were cleaned up,

but the defence is going to say the defendant was hysterical

and walking in circles everywhere he went,

and as you keep walking, the blood on your feet is going to

become fainter and fainter, pretty soon it's not going to be...

Well, forget about Nancy, Jean is at least

supposed to be correcting things.

Who? Who the fuck is...?

Wait - who has said that anyone washed the floor in the kitchen?

If you washed the floor, there wouldn't be any luminol footprints.

Is she an idiot?!

She says, "Oh, yeah, we'll just have to wait and see,

"that's what it sounds like."

No, no. Because there wasn't any wipe marks, or swipe marks.

And the mop was tested, and there was no blood.

I mean, come on, you know...

She's saying stuff there that, it's just... I understand you want

to pump the ratings or whatever, but gimme a break. And I'm not

fussing at you, I understand you didn't have anything

to do with it, but it's... you know, if you are supposed to be informing

the public about what's going on, she ought to have her ass fired.

It's just awful. It's one thing,

you sort of expect it from Nancy Grace,

but for the correspondent who's sat in the court...

It's like she didn't see what happened today!

COOKER CLICKS

I can't believe they were trying to say that Dad faked that

911 call. Yeah, that was the dumbest... Oh, my God.

That really was dumb. That was so stupid of Jim Hardin,

to just sit there and say that.

Especially that day, when you're crying right there.

I tried so hard not to cry too, it was horrible... starting to cry

and all of a sudden you feel the cameras on you, it's like...

I know, right? It's the money shot.

Well, no, but even Caitlin cried at the opening statement

when Rudolf played the 911 tapes.

And Caitlin just wasn't there that day that Hardin...

Oh, she wasn't there? No, she wasn't there,

she probably would have been crying too.

Did she cry in the opening statement? Yeah. Well, I mean...

Do you think it was like an... indignation, is that the word?

Indignant crying or whatever? Or was it, like, she really felt...?

I'm sure... It's just a terrible situation for everybody.

I'm sure everyone's tears are real. That's what I thought.

You know, if you do it a tad second too long,

you lose the perfection of my special recipe.

That right?

Are you going to drink cranberry juice or...? Yeah, cranberry juice.

No wine? No. All right. You going to drink a little

champagne to toast yourself?

I might have a little half a glass. OK, all right.

And this is of course to Bill... For my birthday, really?

Well, yes, but for other reasons too.

And there's a lesson here, and it's for you guys, because I could not

have gotten through this without my brother, and I of course will

be there for him soon, I suppose, when he is incontinent and...

LAUGHTER

..slobbering.

But it is a wonderful lesson for you and your brother,

and for your sisters and your brothers. It goes to la famiglia.

And to Bill. La famiglia! Hey, Dad, when you're acquitted,

you're going to come down and visit me?

I will come down right away. Yay. Mm-hmm.

Have you thought this through? Wouldn't he be an embarrassment?

Only two more months, right? All of October, all of September,

all of August... They're saying October now.

They're saying October now? It's spilled over into October.

Are you kidding me? That's what Court TV says.

But... We talked about that last night, we'll be here for

Halloween and we're going to have Mike Peterson masks made out.

"Give me your candy or I'll shove you."

Little blow pokes!

You got it, Todd? Yeah.

Stop. Stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop.

We got to get that. Margaret, you can carry this.

That's so wrong, just wait for your next birthday, Dad.

MICHAEL LAUGHS

♪ Happy birthday to you

♪ Happy birthday to you

♪ Happy birthday, dear Bill

♪ Happy birthday to you. ♪

THEY APPLAUD

Are you able to say or give this jury a minimum number of

blows that you contend would have been inflicted

to Miss Peterson to cause what we see here?

Yes. On the night that I was at this scene,

I gave Detective Holland a minimum of four blows

that occurred to the victim.

The reason for that was that I found three points of origin from impact.

That means that the source of blood, the back of the head,

was struck three times.

I add one to that because there needs to be at least one blow

that occurs to start bleeding.

One of the points of origin is 19 inches from step 17,

8 inches up from the east wall, and 6 inches out from the north wall.

At that point would her face have been up or down?

If the face were up, out here in space,

and something impacted the head from the bottom,

then the impact spatters are going to go down on the floor and

on the wall low, below the head itself.

Therefore, the source of blood, the back of the head,

is going to have to be up and be impacted in space such that

the blood spatters can go up the walls

and create the blood spatters that you see in Paragraph E.

You've got cast-off outside on that header and on the west wall

on the hallway.

Exactly how could that happen?

It would be my opinion that this cast-off stain that created this,

and this pattern on this wall, was created at or about the same time

that the impact over step number 15 was created.

It's my opinion that the individual creating that

was standing on the outside, able to swing the weapon,

creating this cast-off stain.

My opinion is that this is the scene of a beating,

that this scene is not unlike many scenes that I have been to,

and the spatters, the impact spatters,

are like those consistent with beatings

that I have seen in the past.

So they're putting blood on a sponge on top of a mannequin's head.

A lot of blood.

OVERLAPPING VOICES

It's a Styrofoam head with a sponge on it.

This is quite an impressive scientific method, don't you think?

The first group of experiments is elimination. Yes, exactly.

She cannot be accidental, a fall, from two or three high.

Now you see how much blood spatter.

You actually see a fair amount along the base there.

They actually proved that you get a fair amount of spatter low down!

Then, of course, there's the piece of skull that they don't pick up.

I'd love to hear the audio. Do they have an audio?

He says, "Give me another sponge.

"Here, let's put the sponge down on the floor."

So they put the sponge down on the floor.

"Now, let's beat it some more."

Watch.

One, two...

Oh, broke.

Three, four, five, six, seven.

Eight, nine.

They still don't have the spatter the way they want it.

CHUCKLING

Hey, Tim. Boy, these guys work late too, huh?

We all work late.

Hey, my friend. Hi, buddy, how you doing?

Good, nice to see you. You too, man. How you hanging on? Good.

Tom? Hey, you have a good trip? Piece of cake.

He worked from the end result backwards. He basically wanted

to recreate something. He looked at the pictures!

So his goal was, "I need this end product.

"What do I have to do to get there?"

That's dead polar opposite to good science.

Good science says we don't care what the end product is,

it's all about developing through data collection and conjecture

a good hypothesis, and whatever the outcome it is, it shows.

It shows. It shows.

When you do that, you need to say, "Is there any other

"hypothesis or explanation that could have done this?"

And if there is, I must also test that.

If Deaver should have done any experiment,

that's the one he should have tried to do.

The two points of origin are...

He's trying to put it out in space, you know? You just can't...

You can't... It's an area, it's not a point. That's absolutely right.

So your area, one of them was two inches, one was six.

In a macroscopic view, it's on the wall. Right.

It's right there.

You've got the impact to the back of the head.

How can you orientate that so that it's two inches from there?

Even if I take your head and I physically hold it against there,

physically hold it, you're still more than two inches.

Stop it right there.

Now, how did you determine that you were going to strike

that source of blood from behind the stairway?

I wanted to see what it would do from that side. Why is that?

Just simply as an observation.

So you'd rather see it from that side

than from the side you thought it happened from?

Yes.

All right. I notice that... Can we go back for a second?

OK, let's just replay that again.

Let's watch how high you go.

I notice that you go about that high, right? That amount of force.

About that much.

Can we play it through?

Like that.

Right? Stop it. That's correct.

You realise that when somebody's trying to beat somebody to death,

generally speaking, they're not going like this, right, sir?

Generally speaking, if somebody's trying to beat somebody to death,

they're not going like that, right?

That has nothing to do with these experiments.

I was simply producing an impact spatter.

Something hitting a source of blood

producing a pattern on the wall

so that I could go back and pull my strings.

Sir, my question is... was your theory here that

Michael Peterson was standing somewhere outside the stairway,

leaning in, and doing swings like that, yes or no?

No. OK.

Let me ask you this -

if somebody was hitting a source of blood right there

and they brought it back, where would the cast-off go?

Again, there is many variables on that also.

If the weapon were swung in not a full roundhouse swing,

there probably wouldn't be a cast off.

If the weapon had been cleaned in between swings,

there wouldn't be a cast off.

Let me stop you there.

In other words, if somebody was beating somebody to death

and they hit them once,

then they took a towel and wiped down the weapon...

CHUCKLING

..and then brought it back, then there wouldn't be cast off.

That's correct. Got you.

Given the number of the amount of blood in that stairway

and spatter getting on shorts...

You had spatter even on your white protective suit,

I think we saw a picture of that yesterday, right?

On one of the experiments, yes.

It would have been at least useful

to see if there were any spatters on the shirt.

That's correct.

Your expertise indicates that you just couldn't do that

because it was dark blue, right?

Well, yes, that is correct.

Blood stain pattern analysis is a visual examination.

Had there, you know... I would have looked for them, or whatever,

to be cautious, or whatever.

If I can't really see it,

then I don't consider it for blood stain spatter analysis.

OK, well, of course, you're aware, are you not,

that there are other things you can do,

non-destructive things you can do,

to enhance your ability to see spatter on a blue shirt, right?

Um, no.

Well, you've read Mr Epstein's report, have you not? Yes, I have.

Does he not indicate further testing of the shirt

by alternate light sources,

chemical or photographic techniques may be warranted

to further categorise - characterise - this blood stain.

That is correct.

So let me ask you the question again.

There are techniques available - to people who are trained

in this field, who are experts in this field -

to enhance one's ability to see spatter on a blue shirt, correct?

Eh, some people do use those, that's correct.

Actually, after that report came and suggested that we might do that,

then that shirt was taken to the laboratory and somebody who...

We were there, somebody was there, Suzi Barker,

who had experience with that, more experience than I had.

We took a look at that.

We didn't find anything with that,

but it really doesn't go any more to that.

I didn't see blood spatter on it, so that's what I reported.

Well, hold on a second.

Did you write a report about that lumalite test?

Eh... Yes, I think so, yes.

You did? Yes. Did you give it to the district attorney?

Yes. May we approach, Your Honour?

That's big. That's really fucking big.

That's really big.

The fact that they ran a lumalite and didn't find anything.

You know, in some jurisdictions, they'd strike his testimony.

I know that, but still...

What's most amazing about the experiment is that he admits

he struck a location that didn't exist with a random amount of force

and a random amount of blood to try to produce the stain. Right.

So he knows he can produce that stain in a scenario that

he knows did not exist at the scene. Right.

That's exactly right. Make a note of that for closing.

You know that under the Constitution,

a defendant is entitled to any evidence that may tend

to exculpate him, you're aware of that, are you not? Yes, I am.

And that the district attorney is under

a constitutional obligation to turn over such evidence to the defendant,

you're aware of that? Yes, I am.

Did you provide a copy of this report to the district attorney

so that he could give it to us?

As far as I remember, I did.

Well, how do you generally deliver reports to the DA?

As soon as their copies come to me, then I make a hand delivery of them.

So you would have hand-delivered this?

Yes. To Mr Hardin? Yes.

Do you recall having a conversation with him

about handing him this report?

No, I don't.

Or Miss Black? No, I don't.

You're certainly not suggesting that if they got this report

they wouldn't have turned it over to me.

I'm making no suggestion.

You recall telling them that there were

no spatters that you could see on Michael Peterson's shirt?

I don't.

Did you think they just didn't need to know that?

My answer was I don't recall telling him.

OK.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

Yes, sir.

All right, members of the jury, we'll take our afternoon recess.

Remember the instructions I've given you throughout the...

He's fucking chopped liver.

The other thing that we saw today that was pretty remarkable

was a report prepared by the SBI agent Mr Deaver

in which he was supposed to be checking using a lumalite,

I think it's called,

to check for blood spatter evidence on Michael Peterson's shirt.

He prepared, it turns out, a report on that work that he did,

but that report had not come forward.

My question is were there any blood transfers or smears

or was that shirt totally clean? That is unclear,

although the evidence today seems to suggest that there was nothing.

It seems to me he changed shirts.

I wonder if it wasn't another shirt as well, but that hasn't yet...

I think we're going to pursue that some more tomorrow in court, but...

Sometimes I think they're watching a different trial.

HOME VIDEO PLAYS

Oh!

Um, I'm looking for the poker.

To make sure I marked down every time that a fireplace was shown.

It's so frustrating to sit there in court and know the answers to things

that Jim Hardin is, "Ooh, this," or "Ooh, there's blood there.

"Ooh, this", when you've lived it every day of your life and

you know exactly why it's there and you can't say anything.

You know, you have to just wait for the lawyers to get it in,

and then it's not even considered fact because it's just hearsay.

It's so frustrating.

I've been filming since 1994, I guess.

Christmas in 1994, I've been filming our family,

and so anything that can help, I'm going to help.

In the picture that the DA has, it's lying horizontally,

maybe, like, there.

It's kind of cut off. Clayton is standing here.

He's a freshman in college at Duke,

and Wilbur is a puppy and he's sitting right there

where Wilbur is now, but this is many years later, in 1999,

and there's no blow poke to be seen, so...

I don't even remember the blow poke

being there, except when we first moved in the house.

So they're kind of stupid for using that.

This whole trial is pretty pointless, if you ask me.

'Mom, it's cute!

'Mom!'

Dr Radisch, do you have an opinion as to how these various injuries

on Miss Peterson's face would have occurred?

Yes. What is that opinion?

The injuries, for instance of the right eyelid, the injuries,

the abrasions, below the left eye, I would not expect those to

occur as a result of falling against a flat, firm surface.

They're in areas that are normally protected

by bones that stick out around them,

so they wouldn't have contact with a flat surface.

On the head, there were seven areas of laceration.

Again, these are...

Lacerations are tears.

In many of these lacerations, they were actually full thickness,

or all the way through the scalp to the underlying skull.

It's not been pulled away, but at the autopsy,

we could actually pull these pieces of tissues up as a flap,

or this piece of tissue, for instance,

in this particular wound, pulled up as a flap.

Now, with respect to the cumulative injuries,

do you have an opinion as to whether they collectively

are consistent with a fall down the steps? Yes, I do.

What is that opinion?

In my opinion, all the injuries found on this body

are not consistent with a fall down the stairs.

Let me ask you whether those are consistent with having been

struck with something like what is marked here as State's Exhibit 72?

Yeah... Yes, in my opinion, they could be.

In looking at the nature of the injuries that

Kathleen Peterson had suffered,

we decided that we were going to go back at least ten years

and look at every beating death that had occurred in North Carolina

and see what the injuries were,

because Kathleen Peterson had no skull fracture,

she had no massive brain injuries,

indeed, she had virtually no injuries to her brain at all.

She didn't even have any bruising on the brain.

We went back and we looked at in excess of 250 cases,

which were all the cases involving beating deaths

in North Carolina for the past decade.

There was not a single case involving multiple blows

to the head where there was not either skull fracture or massive

injuries to the brain, or both.

You didn't have that in this case.

Would it be fair to say that in cases involving beatings

with blunt objects where someone is really trying to kill somebody

that there are certain injuries that one generally tends to see?

I don't really... I think you would have to be more specific.

All right.

Can I approach?

I want to just put these up here.

Obviously you're not going to be able read these all,

but I want you to just tell me if they appear to you to be,

just from looking at them,

a collection of all the autopsies involving blunt trauma to the head

in North Carolina from 1991 to 2003.

Objection.

She can respond however she wants to respond. Overruled.

CHUCKLING FROM GALLERY

I don't really think I can give you an accurate answer to your question.

All right. Not today.

LAUGHTER

Are you aware, Dr Radisch,

that out of the 257 cases in North Carolina since 1991,

there is not a single case where a person was beaten

with an object such as this,

whether it was metal or wood or hollow or not,

not a single case documented where a person was beaten

with an object like this in the head

where there was not skull factures and massive brain injury?

Are you aware of that?

I don't know that because I haven't reviewed them.

Of course, Kathleen Peterson didn't have any skull fracture.

No, she didn't.

Or any contusion on the brain. No. Or any oedema. No.

And she didn't have any broken bones in her hands. No.

Or her ribs. No.

And are you familiar with the case up in Nova Scotia,

a similar set of circumstances,

where a wife was found at the foot of the stairs and her husband,

Clayton Johnson, was charged with murder? I've heard of it.

In that case,

the forensic experts called by the prosecution at trial

testified under oath that they could determine that the injuries

were inconsistent with a fall and had to be from a beating,

isn't that right?

I don't know details of the case, I don't know what the injuries were.

Well, do you know that after serving some number of years in prison,

a number of forensic pathologists

and people who study injury biomechanics

and various other experts were put together

by the government of Canada to look into that case?

I know that it was reviewed and that a different decision,

or different determination, was made.

And what was determined was that the injuries

that the initial State's forensic pathologist testified

you would not expect from a fall

in fact had come from a fall.

Right?

Yes.

That's all I have. Thank you, Doctor.