bloodstain patterns?'
'Yes, sir. I attended the Oregon State Medical Examiners' death investigation class in 1990, a blood pattern analysis training program at the Police Academy in 1991, an advanced crime scene training program in 1992, and I completed a basic, intermediate and advanced serology training program in 1992. Over the years, I have read numerous articles in the area and attended many seminars where these subjects were discussed.'
'As part of your duties, do you go to crime scenes and collect evidence?'
'Yes.'
'How many crime scenes have you investigated?'
Yoshida laughed. 'Gosh, I don't know. I never kept a count. It's a lot, though. I investigate several homicides each year. Then, there are other scenes.'
'Okay. Now, were you one of the criminalists who went to the Hoyt estate on the evening that Lamar Hoyt and Martin Jablonski were shot to death?'
'I was.'
'Please describe the scene forjudge Quinn.'
Yoshida left the witness box and walked over to a large diagram of the murder scene that he had prepared. The diagram was resting on an easel.
'The crime scene we are interested in is the master bedroom on the second floor of Mr. Hoyt's mansion. To get to that room, you climb a set of stairs to the second floor, then go down a long corridor in a westerly direction.'
Yoshida picked up a wooden pointer and placed its tip on a section of the drawing that represented the door to the hall.
'The master bedroom itself is a rectangle. The door between the bedroom and the hall is in the east wall at the southeast corner of the bedroom.'
Yoshida moved his pointer to the bathroom doorway.
'The northern wall in the hall is also the south wall of the bathroom. When you enter the bedroom, you can see the bathroom door if you look to your right.'
Yoshida moved the pointer again.
'If you are standing in the doorway and you look directly across the room, you'll see the west wall. A good portion of that wall is a large window with a view of the pool and part of the yard. Halfway between the west and east walls is a king-size bed. The headboard touches the north wall. Directly across from the foot of the bed is an armoire approximately seven feet high. It contains a television and its back touches the south wall. My information from the first officers on the scene and an interview with the houseman, James Allen, is that the lights in the room were off when the crime occurred and that the television was also off.'
'When you entered the crime scene, what did you see?'
Yoshida pointed to a stick figure that had been positioned between the small box that represented the armoire and the slightly larger box that represented the king-size bed.
'The first thing I saw was the body of Martin Jablonski. He was facedown with his feet almost touching the armoire and his head facing the bed. There was a pool of blood under his body approximately ten feet from the foot of the bed and one foot from the west-facing side of the armoire. There was also a .45-caliber handgun lying on the floor near Mr. Jablonski's right hand.'
'Did you determine how Mr. Jablonski was killed?'
'Yes, sir. The defendant told the investigating officers that she shot Mr. Jablonski twice with a Smith & Wesson .38 snubnose loaded with hollow point bullets. When Mr. Jablonski was autopsied, the medical examiner recovered two bullets that had lodged in the body. One was recovered from Mr. Jablonski's head and the other from his torso. They were the type of bullet that the defendant described. Ballistics tests confirmed that the defendant's gun, which was recovered at the scene, fired the two shots.'
'Why didn't the bullets exit the body?' Riker asked.
'Hollow point bullets are designed to stay inside the body so they can bounce around and cause more damage.'
'Did you see another body in the room?'
'Yes, sir. The body of Lamar Hoyt was sprawled on his back on the bed. I was told that he had been shot while in the bed, but that the defendant had been found holding him with his head in her lap. From blood spatter patterns on the headboard and bed, I concluded that Mr. Hoyt was probably sitting up on the east side of the bed when he was shot. Then he fell sideways onto the west side of the bed. The defendant pulled him even further sideways when she sat down and cradled his head.'
'Did ballistics tests identify the .45-caliber handgun found next to Mr. Jablonski as the weapon that was used to kill Lamar Hoyt?'
'Yes.'
'Now, Officer Yoshida, did the defendant explain what happened on the evening of the shooting?'
'Yes, sir. To Detective Anthony.'
'Please tell the Court how the shooting scenario was explained to you.'
'As I understood the defendant's version, she and Mr. Hoyt had engaged in sexual intercourse. The defendant has the side of the bed closest to the window. She stated that after they finished, she got up from the bed, went to the window in the west wall, then crossed in front of the bed and entered the bathroom, turned on the bathroom light and washed up.
'After finishing in the bathroom, she put on her nightgown, turned off the bathroom light and crossed back in front of the bed. She got back in the bed on her side and talked with Mr. Hoyt for a while. As they were talking, the door opened and Mr. Jablonski entered the room. The defendant said she saw that Mr. Jablonski was armed, so she ducked over her side of the bed and secured the .38 that she keeps under it. She heard three shots and came up firing. Mr. Jablonski fell and she turned her attention to her husband, whom she determined to be dead.'
'Officer Yoshida, when you looked at the crime scene on the evening of the shootings, did you see anything that called the defendant's version of the shootings into question?'
Yoshida looked embarrassed.
'The evidence was there. I just didn't pick up on it.'
'What did you conclude on the evening of the crime?'
'That the defendant was telling the truth.'
Yoshida's embarrassment deepened. He looked up at Quinn and tried to explain his failure to correctly interpret the crime scene's story.
'Everyone thought we were dealing with a burglary that went wrong. I mean, Jablonski was dead, there was no question his gun fired the shots that killed Mr. Hoyt. I guess I just assumed there was nothing to look for.'
'Did something happen after the first crime scene investigation that caused you to question your first impression?' Riker asked.
'Yes, sir. I took a second look at the evidence while I was writing my report.'
'When you reexamined the evidence, did you discover something you'd missed the first time around?'
'I did.'
'What was that, Officer Yoshida?'
'I spotted a blood spatter pattern in two of the crime scene photographs that had not made an impression on me when I was at the scene. It made me question the defendant's story of how the shooting of Martin Jablonski occurred.'
'Did you tell Detective Anthony that you had to visit the scene again?'
'Yes. I needed to see everything again in three dimensions to confirm my suspicions.'
'Did you feel time was of the essence?'
'I did. It was already a week since the shooting and I was afraid that the blood pattern would be destroyed or contaminated.'
'Can you explain to the judge what you can tell from blood spatter analysis that is relevant to this case?'
'Certainly,' Yoshida told Riker before addressing the judge. 'If I asked you to tell me what shape a drop of blood takes when it falls straight down, you would probably tell me that it would look like a teardrop, but that is a popular misconception. Actually, falling drops of blood are shaped like a sphere. The type of surface the drop strikes and the angle at which it hits affect the pattern the drop makes when it strikes a surface.
