Strangler

by Corey Mitchell

  “Every person is different,” Long continued. “Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of your DNA between all of us is the same. It’s that point-one percent that we’re looking at that makes us different. Except for identical twins, they have the same DNA.

  “The testing that we’re using today,” Long expanded, while still captivating the jury, “we can actually say this one individual contributed to this body fluid or skin cells because we get such high discrimination.”

  “Tell us about the different sources of testing for DNA,” requested Siegler.

  “As you can see from the slides”—Long pointed to the overhead screen showing her PowerPoint presentation—“blood, sperm cells, tissues, bone marrow, hair. We can get DNA from almost anything.”

  “When you get evidence submitted to you at Orchid Cellmark,” Siegler began, “explain to us the process by which you receive it, take care of it, transfer it, and test it.”

  “The minute it hits the door, it’s assigned a case number. It’s assigned an item number. This is so that we can keep track of the evidence because, heaven forbid, we should misplace something.

  “We keep a chain of custody,” Long continued. “The package is in a sealed condition the entire time that it’s at Orchid Cellmark.”

  “When you’re dealing with evidence from old cases, like we have in this case,” Siegler asked, “what sort of factors influence the ability for you to get any kind of results because of the packaging that was done in the old days?”

  “Sometimes things are placed in plastic bags that could be detrimental to DNA, because if there’s any kind of moisture present, mold and mildew can build up and that actually degrades the DNA.

  “Some of the boxes were not stored in ideal conditions,” Long continued. “They were exposed to heat, water. So some of the packaging is detrimental to us.”

  “So, as in the case when HPD sent you some evidence back in October of last year, within a couple of days you told them that you could get DNA off of the evidence submitted?” Siegler wanted to know.

  “Correct,” answered Long.

  “What determines a match?”

  “Actually, a match can happen at just one location on your DNA. What we’re testing is thirteen locations. And if all those thirteen locations are identical to the evidentiary sample, then that’s considered a match.”

  “Explain the steps you went through in analyzing the evidence in this case.”

  “First we extract the DNA out of the cells that it’s in. From there, we then identify the portions of the DNA that we want to test. We then make copies, which is called amplification. The actual copies are labeled with fluorescent tags and those are detected with an instrument.

  “We then do some tests,” Long continued. “Our software actually identifies what part of the DNA that we’ve actually gotten. And from there, we can perform statistical analysis using different software programs.”

  Siegler could see that the jury was starting to get restless. She decided to get to the meat of the discussion. “And in this report we’re fixing to show, you prepared on Maria Estrada, do the back pages show the loci, or location, of the DNA?”

  “Yes, it will actually show the number of repeats each sample had.”

  “And is what’s scanned in here on the following pages your actual final report on the evidence you tested on Maria Estrada?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  Siegler and Long went over a copy of Long’s report for the Estrada case. The prosecutor asked the scientist to look at page 4 of her report. “What are you looking for as far as being able to tell if you have a match?”

  “We’re looking at the numbers and comparing the numbers to each other. And if the number of repeats match, that gives us an indication that we may have identical samples or identical DNA.”

  “Specifically, what items did you test in the Maria Estrada case?” Siegler inquired as the collective jury panel leaned forward.

  “I tested the samples that were submitted to me, specifically, a wooden rod, a rope, an empty swab box and swab sticks, Maria Estrada’s left-hand fingernails, Maria Estrada’s right-hand fingernails, a stain card from Maria Estrada, which is basically blood that’s been put on the cloth, one plastic tube that was labeled ‘Oral Swab,’ one plastic—it was a DNA oral swab, P-1 female, one plastic tube DNA oral swab Q-2, which was male, and buccal swabs, Anthony Allen Shore.”

  “When you received that evidence, were you able to tell that the evidence had already been dealt with and tested by the Houston Police Department Crime Lab?”

  “Yes, it was,” Long confirmed.

  “Has it been your experience that when HPD’s crime lab did their DNA testing, they were not in the habit of saving and leaving enough samples for future testing?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Just like what happened in this case?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, were you able to duplicate or replicate the findings that HPD had already done in the items that we’re talking about right now?” Siegler asked.

  “No. I was not able to, because there was not enough DNA left.”

  “So, you focused for the first time on what?”

  “I tried to focus on the stuff that I felt they hadn’t tested. In this particular case it would be the fingernails from Maria Estrada.”

  “Before we get into the fingernails, did you focus on the wooden rod and the rope, the ligature, the two parts of the ligature?” Siegler quizzed Long.

  “Yes, I did,” Long responded.

  “And what were the results?”

  “They were insufficient. There wasn’t enough DNA to provide a profile.”

  “Nothing came off the ligature?”

  “Correct.”

  Siegler then asked Long to talk about Maria Estrada’s fingernails.

  “We actually had the physical fingernails that were cut from Maria Estrada’s body,” Long responded.

  Siegler showed the small packets of Maria Estrada’s fingernail end clippings that were used by Orchid Cellmark. “You didn’t need to scrape anything off. You just used the fingernail itself?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Tell the jury how you do that. What do you do with it?”

  “Typically, what I do,” Long continued as she held the jury’s rapt attention, “is basically rinse off the fingernails. Any DNA that may have been picked up by those fingernails is separated from the fingernails themselves. I then remove the fingernails from the solution and perform DNA [test] on what came off the fingernails.”

  “In order to compare the unknown fingernail evidence, you have to compare it to the knowns?” the prosecutor asked.

  “Correct.”

  “And in this case the knowns were what and what?” Siegler queried.

  “The known initially was the known stain card from Maria Estrada.”

  “And how about from the defendant?”

  “From the defendant we actually had what’s called buccal swabs, which is basically just a swabbing of the inside of your cheek.”

  “Have you done much testing with fingernails and fingernail clippings?”

  “I’ve done quite a bit,” responded Long. “That’s one of the better evidentiary items that tends to hold up over the course of time . . . because they tend to be better preserved. They don’t get wet. It’s just a nice little place for DNA to hide.”

  “Why?” pondered Siegler.

  “It’s protected. You’ve got a hard surface and it’s just one of those things when a female is attacked, typically a female will scratch her attacker.”

  “In this case”—Siegler was lining up her witness for the key information—“when you tested the fingernails, left and right hand of Maria Estrada, what were the results?”

  Long sat slightly more erect and stated, “There was a foreign DNA profile, foreign to Maria Estrada under her fingernails.”

  “Which hand?”

  “The left hand.”

  “What
were your results? What is your opinion as to who that foreign contributor, under her left hand fingernail, belonged to?”

  Long did not hesitate: “Anthony Allen Shore contributed the male DNA that was found under the fingernails of Maria Estrada.”

  Shore did not flinch. He never looked up at Long. He also ignored the jury.

  Siegler perked up and continued her line of questioning. “What number base do you use and how do you go about making sure your statistical analysis is correct?”

  “The statistical analysis is checked by another analyst and everything in the file is reviewed by the supervisor.”

  “And where is the database originating from?”

  “It originates from the—it was provided to us by the FBI,” Long asserted.

  “Based on your statistical analysis and the results that you got on the left hand fingernails, Ms. Long,” Siegler ramped it up, “tell us the statistical probability involved in this case.”

  “This particular genetic profile, we would expect to see it once in 4.72 trillion times in the black population. We would expect to see it only once in 3.53 trillion times in the Caucasian population and one in 57.1 trillion times in the Hispanic population.”

  “Now, in everyday normal language, restate what this says to the jury with these numbers,” Siegler directed Long.

  “This is just how many times we would expect if we had 3.53 trillion people. We would expect to see this particular profile only once.”

  “How many people exist on the face of the earth today?”

  “There are approximately 6 billion people.”

  “So, is another way of saying this, you would have to go through 3.53 trillion people to come up with someone with the same DNA as Anthony Allen Shore?”

  “That would be the expected frequency of this particular profile,” Long concurred.

  Kelly Siegler turned toward the jury, then looked back at Katherine Long. She smiled. “Pass the witness.”

  * * *

  The state rested on the third day of testimony.

  The defense, hamstrung by their client’s need to control everything, did not call a single witness.

  CHAPTER 58

  Thursday, October 21, 2004,

  Harris County Courthouse,

  1201 Franklin Street,

  Courtroom #337,

  Houston, Texas.

  Terese Buess and Kelly Siegler were set to make their closing arguments. Terese Buess took the floor. “Sometimes the wheels of justice grind very slowly,” she opened, looking at the jury. “Ask Maria del Carmen Estrada’s father who’s waited twelve long years wanting to know who kidnapped, sexually assaulted, raped, and murdered his daughter.

  “Ask Mr. Torres, who had a four-and-a-half-month relationship with her, who had discussed marriage.”

  Buess continued down the list of people touched by Estrada’s death, including the police officers and detectives who worked her case. She explained that they were all ready for justice to finally be served.

  The assistant district attorney went on to explain why the prosecution had successfully proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Tony Shore had committed capital murder.

  “The evidence is clear,” Buess reminded the jury. “It’s astoundingly loud and clear for all of you. And Kelly and I are both going to be asking you to return the proper verdict in this case, of guilty of capital murder.”

  Buess’s closing argument was short and sweet.

  Gerald Bourque stood on behalf of Tony Shore.

  “I’m sick and tired of trying to make something out of something it’s not. This is clearly, clearly, clearly a murder case. And if he spends the rest of his life in prison,” the attorney turned and looked at Tony Shore, then back to the jurors, “I have no problem with that.”

  Bourque then proceeded to separate “capital” from “murder” for the jury. “So, let’s talk about what we have. We have a murder, a despicable, disgusting, tragic—I don’t have a sufficient number of adjectives to describe this death, the homicide, this murder, this intentionally taking of a twenty-one-year-old young lady’s life. I don’t have words to describe it. All we have is the word ‘murder.’ It is not a capital murder.”

  Bourque’s argument was based on the defense’s belief that Shore knew Estrada, that he had a relationship with her, and that she willingly had sex with him. He had an interesting way of analogizing his argument.

  “There is no evidence that the deadly weapon, the ligature, was used to force compliance. There is what?” Bourque asked rhetorically. “Speculation and conjecture. Well, if you put it around a horse’s neck and you drag them to the barn over here, he’ll follow you. And if you tell him to get down on his knees, he’ll get down on his knees. Okay?”

  The imagery of ropes and forced compliance was probably not the most well-timed.

  The self-described “little bald-headed, big-eared, short guy” Bourque concluded, “I understand what really happened in this case. He intended to kill her. He killed her. It’s disgusting. It’s depraved. It’s maniacal, but it ain’t capital murder.”

  The state, as is the norm in Texas, was allowed the final closing argument. Buess reiterated the evidence against Shore and that his case was indeed capital murder.

  Siegler was also allowed to proffer a closing argument. She stood up and looked over to the jury. “One question that Terese and I know you’ve all asked yourselves is how could a defendant so smart, so intelligent, so brilliant, how could he confess?

  “And let there be no doubt in this courtroom that this man’s intelligence level, his IQ, is higher than everyone else’s in this room. He’s that smart.” The jury shifted at this statement. Tony Shore did not even bother to look up.

  “So why would someone so smart confess?” Siegler wondered. “Because as high as his IQ level is, his desire for control is even higher. Rape is never about sex. Rape is always about power and control. That’s why he gave a completely voluntary, Mirandized—six different times—confession. Because to him it’s all about control.”

  Siegler pointed out how Shore needed to be in control in the police interrogation room and how he casually referred to Sergeant Swaim as “John” and Officer Miller as “Todd.” She mentioned how he was completely able to mask his deception.

  “It’s human nature,” Siegler continued, “to want to figure out how he could turn out this way? What happened in his childhood? What happened to him to allow him to turn out to be the kind of man that he is today?”

  Siegler again faced the jury and stated, “Well, you know what? In this case Tony Shore is in a world all by himself because even among the people, the criminals— the sick, depraved criminals that you can’t figure out—you can line up shrinks from now to doomsday to talk to him and evaluate him and test him and ask him questions and you would never understand what kind of man he is.”

  Siegler turned toward Shore. “It was never sex that he wanted from Carmen. It was always control.” The prosecutor turned her back away from Shore. “Why do you think he used the tourniquet, not a gun, not a knife? That’s too easy. That’s too clean. That’s too simple and that’s too fast.”

  Siegler stood in front of the jury box and began making twisting motions with her hands. “See, with a tourniquet, he can torture her. He can terrorize her. He can look into the fear and the terror in her eyes and he can take his sweet, sweet, sick, sick time doing it.”

  Siegler directly addressed the jury. “Can you imagine what she was thinking and feeling in the last moments she was alive as he twisted and untwisted and tightened and untightened, as he decided when he was going to let her breathe, when he was going to let her loose, and when he was going to let her stop breathing?”

  The assistant district attorney brought up the knot on the ligature. “So why is the knot in the back?” she wondered. “Because he’s raping her from the rear, then she’s more than just a thing there in front of him and he can control as he looks down upon her and he twists and he tightens as
it turns him on.”

  The entire gallery seemed uncomfortable at the imagery.

  Siegler talked about how Shore carried around a ligature and wooden dowel for strangling purposes and how he must have imagined the day he would murder.

  She also lobbed verbal fireballs at Bourque’s argument that Shore and Estrada had engaged in consensual sex. “Use your common sense and know that what we’re talking about here is a sexual assault case. Why would her panties be rolled around her ankles the way they were? Why would her panty hose be ripped and rolled around her ankles the way they were? When you have consensual sex, do you cut your bra in two? Of course not. Use your common sense.”

  Siegler then switched gears to commend all of the officers who worked on the case. “In a day where all we ever get is criticism, have you appreciated the fact that not only did they recover all the evidence and interview to the point he gave a statement, they also managed to find out exactly what kind of cord was used, number-four Venetian blind?

  “The complete detail and thoroughness of the job that they did is to be commended. And mostly be commended for the fact that they never gave up.”

  Siegler then reverted back to the defendant, Tony Shore. “He tells you in the tape he has a sick consumption. He says, his words, not mine, ‘I don’t know what to call it.’ Well, maybe Anthony Shore doesn’t know what to call it, but you do. Depraved, sick, maniacal, monstrous.”

  Siegler asked the jurors to put themselves in Estrada’s position. “What do you think about when you know you’re about to die? When a man you don’t even know is fixing to kill you for a reason you have no idea that you can understand. Can you imagine the terror that she went through?

  “Can you imagine what she thought in those last minutes as she begged for her life? Can you imagine what it feels like to die and to leave this world looking into the eyes of that?” Siegler practically spat as she pointed toward Shore. “And that”—she thrust her index finger at Shore again—“is a capital murderer. It is time today to find him guilty.”

  Judge Cosper informed the jurors that the argument portion of the trial was complete and they were to deliberate Anthony Allen Shore’s fate. She then released the two alternate jurors and sent the remaining twelve on their way.