current house.
“The manner of death, Doctor?” Roger Ogren asks.
“The manner of death was unquestionably homicide. Thenumber, angle, and severity of the blows, as well as common sense, rule out anypossibility of self-infliction.”
“And the time of death?”
“I would estimate time of death at seven in the evening, onSaturday, February seventh of this year. That is based on several things. Therate of decomposition. The contents of the victim’s stomach. We know from thereceipt that he had food delivered to his house at six-twenty that evening.Assuming that he ate the food relatively soon after receiving it, the digestionof the food was at such a stage that digestion had ceased somewhere aroundseven o’clock. And we can look at the time that was frozen on the clock thatwas partially broken over his head. The time on that clock was six minutesafter seven p.m. That doesn’t conclusively prove that Sam Dillon was murderedat seven-oh-six p.m., but all other evidence would certainly corroborate thatpoint.”
“All right, Doctor. Now I would like to take you through allof the details that led to these conclusions.”
Okay, Deputy Griggs. Other than the broken fingernail andthe platinum earring, did you find anything else at Mr. Dillon’s home?”
The witness, Jodie Griggs, is a deputy investigator with theCounty Attorney Technical Unit. She is a large woman with full red cheeks andcurly blond hair.
“We found a follicle of hair belonging to the defendant,”she says.
“Objection,” says Ron McGaffrey, getting to his feet. “Thatis assuming facts not in evidence. The DNA testing is the subject of dispute.”
A dispute, Allison thinks to herself, but not much of one.The defense has not conceded that the DNA tests established that the hairbelonged to Allison, but they have come up with no basis for saying it didn’t.Allison has told her lawyer, all along, not to even bother contesting it.
“Sustained.” The judge nods in the direction of the prosecutor.“The answer is stricken.”
“A hair follicle,” Roger Ogren tries, “that the CountyAttorney Technical Unit has determined to be linked by DNA to the defendant?”
“Yes. Our DNA tests have shown that.”
“And does the presence of this hair have any significance toyou, Deputy?”
“Yes.” The technician settles in the witness stand, crossesa leg. “You can only obtain DNA from the bulb of a hair follicle. Hair thatsimply falls out doesn’t have the bulb.” She nods to her shoulder. “I probablyhave a piece of hair on my shoulder right now. But you couldn’t get my DNA fromit.”
“Well, if hair that simply falls out does not contain abulb, and therefore no DNA,” asks Roger Ogren, “then what does that mean forthis follicle of hair that you recovered, which contains the bulb?”
“It means it was pulled out,” she answers. “It suggests astruggle.”
“Very good. Deputy, what else did you find, in the course ofyour search as an officer with the County Attorney Technical Unit?”
“We searched Mr. Dillon’s computer.”
“And did you find anything of significance?”
“We did. There was an e-mail-an electronic mail message fromMr. Dillon’s computer on Sunday, February eighth, 2004. The very early morningfollowing the night of his death.”
“What time was it sent?”
“It was sent at one-eighteen a.m. and forty-two seconds onSunday, February eighth, 2004.”
The prosecutor gets the court’s permission to admit a copyof the e-mail into evidence. He hands a copy to the defense and places a slidecopy on an overhead projector:
From:“Dillon, Samuel”‹sam. [email protected]›
To:“Pagone, Allison Q.”‹ [email protected]›
Re: Attorney-Client
Date: Sun, 8 Feb. 20041:18:42 AM
A:
NEED TO DISCUSS FURTHER.GETTING WORRIED. MANY WOULD BE UNHAPPY WITH MY INFO. NEED ADVICE ASAP.
S
“Now, Deputy Griggs, let me ask you.” Roger Ogren remainsnext to the projector. “You are familiar with the prosecution’s theory in thiscase that Mr. Dillon was killed at around seven p.m. on Saturday, Februaryseventh, 2004. Are you familiar with that?”
“I am.”
“Now, according to this e-mail”-Ogren points with the tip ofa pen to the “Date” line-“this e-mail was sent from Mr. Dillon’s computer atone-eighteen in the morning on Sunday, the eighth of February, 2004.”
“Correct. One-eighteen and forty-two seconds.”
“A little over six hours after that timeframe of seveno’clock the previous evening?”
“Yes,” she says with confidence.
“One might claim,” says Ogren, “that this proves Mr. Dillonwas still alive long after the time we argue he died. Notwithstanding theforensic evidence relating to decomposition of the body and of the food in hisstomach- notwithstanding all of that evidence and more-one might say this e-mailproves that Sam Dillon was still alive early Sunday morning.”
“Object to the form,” says Ron McGaffrey.
“Sustained.”
“Well, then I’ll say it this way. As an investigator intothe murder of Sam Dillon, Deputy Griggs, did seeing this e-mail give you pauseabout the time of death?”
“It did. Until we searched Allison Pagone’s home.”
“And what did you find in Allison Pagone’s home that spoketo this issue?”
“Her computer. Allison Pagone is a novelist. She writesfiction. She writes crime novels.”
“I’ve read them,” says Ogren.
“So have I.” She smiles briefly. “We looked through hercomputer. We looked, among other things, at her ‘trash’ file.”
“What is a ‘trash’ file?”
“It is a file of discarded documents. You do it to clear outspace on your hard drive. And then you can ‘recycle’ the trash, which means youare dumping the files even from that ‘trash’ bin.”
The judge nods. Old-school as he is, he probably has acomputer, if not two. He might already understand the concept of a “trash” bin.This judge is probably in his late sixties, which could render him clueless inan information era with exponentially improving technology. Her ex-husband,Mat, can hardly type and only recently learned the wonders of the internet. Herdaughter, Jessica, in contrast, who was practically raised online, can dothings on a computer that Allison would never dream of understanding.
“Go on, Deputy,” says Roger Ogren.
“We found a rather large manuscript in the ‘recycle’ bin ofher trash. Meaning it had been dumped, and then dumped again.”
“You have the capability to find such a document, even whenit has been completely discarded?”
“We do.” The witness proceeds to explain the technicalitiesof the CAT Unit’s data-retrieval methodology. It is not surprising in the leastto Allison, and a bit frightening, that the government has the means toretrieve almost anything that ever appeared on a personal laptop computer.
“Tell us about this rather large document you found after itwas discarded twice,” Roger Ogren requests. “First of all, when it was created,that sort of thing. Were you able to determine that kind of information?”
“Absolutely we were. Once the document is retrieved, you canlook at all of the document’s properties. It is as simple as clicking on‘properties’ on the menu.”
“Were you able to print out this ‘properties’ page, DeputyGriggs?”
