Romaniuk waits until Copley has finished reading. ‘I don’t recognise that as an authoritative textbook on the subject.’
Copley will not give up. Weren’t bite marks still a developing scientific technique?
Romaniuk holds his ground. Yes, he says. It is both an art and a science.
‘That is not the answer to my question.’
‘It is. It is the complete answer.’
‘Is it?’
‘Please don’t interrupt me,’ Romaniuk retorts, ‘until I complete my answer.’ He will not be bullied. ‘I find your questions aggressive, confusing, devious and very often intellectually dishonest,’ he complains to Copley.
Voicing strenuous objection to the witness’s comment, Copley asks that Justice Vasta rule it out.
‘Exchanges between witnesses and counsel are part of trial atmosphere,’ Vasta responds. He will not rule as asked.
Romaniuk, Reynolds recalls, would not back down. They could, he says, have belted him with a cricket bat and he still wouldn’t have changed his story. It was his unequivocal opinion that the only person who could have made the bite mark was Raymond John Carroll.
In his chambers during recesses, Justice Vasta discards his judge’s robes and quietly reflects on the progress of the trial. The law, he knows, can be cumbersome and slow, jurors an eclectic mix, cases rarely watertight. Defence lawyers cannot always preserve any vestige of dignity for their clients, and prosecutors cannot always win a conviction. The scales of justice can dip erratically, sometimes on the slightest piece of evidence. Vasta can see all from his lofty position: the faces of the jurors, the angst of Carroll’s family, the dour expression on police faces, the press and the parasites in the public gallery, often there just to gawk. It is their right, unless a court is closed, to see the law in all its transparency. But this is such a sensitive case that even he finds himself, on occasions, still shocked at the evidence.
Right now, Vasta’s main concern is to ensure the jury does not drown under the weight of the forensic dental evidence. He has noticed, at times, that the media seems unsure of how to translate what they are hearing, occasionally shooting sideways glances at each other and rolling their eyes in exasperation as they try to unscramble what is being said in the witness box and how best to translate it to their audience. But it is not the media that is Vasta’s immediate concern, it is the jury. As cumbersome and slow as the law can be, the pathway for them must remain clear and unobstructed.
But it appears, after all, that the press has a very clear view of proceedings. Readers in Queensland wake the next morning to read: ‘Court Told Dentists Disagreed on Bite Marks’.
19
Bernard Sims, a genial bear of a man, takes the stand on 1 March 1985 and begs the court’s indulgence to read out his curriculum vitae. It is a sure sign to seasoned observers that it will be lengthy, and it is. Senior Lecturer in Forensic Odontology at London Hospital Medical Centre. Member of numerous academies and societies of forensic science. Author of journals and editorials, including a forensic paper on ‘Bite Marks in Battered Baby Syndrome’. Qualified in 1960 and working in forensic odontology within two years, he now boasts nearly a quarter of a century’s experience and has seen about 200 bite mark cases in both adults and children. Of the battered babies he has seen, 400 were dead and 200 living.
Sims’s stomach bulges over his belt and his ruby lips stand out against pallid skin, compliments of equally pallid English summers. He is clearly at ease in the witness stand. At the present moment, he says, he is the only full time forensic dental surgeon and forensic odontologist in the United Kingdom, and his full time occupation is examining bite marks, age assessments and identifications. He tells the court, with a broad smile, that he is so highly regarded in his field that he has had cause, on a number of occasions, to remind his mentor – one of the world’s leading odontologists – that he has seen fewer bite mark cases than Sims.
Copley makes a flamboyant display of looking at his watch and the jury gets the message. Sims is well qualified. They have enough proof.
It was long before television shows such as CSI brought forensics into people’s lounge rooms. In 1985 forensic dentistry was an exclusive profession. This was true of all forensic disciplines.
When Sims spoke, the masses listened.
Sims had not long been in Australia before the trial started and the court was adjourned while his opinion was typed up. He had made comparisons with Carroll’s original dental study models and with black-and-white photographs of Deidre’s bruises. Caused by rupture of the subcutaneous capillaries, blood escapes into tissue, which in time comes to the skin surface and fades, creating the blue-black discolouration that is a bruise. Within an hour, Sims had satisfied himself that it was Carroll’s teeth that had made those bruise marks.
The exhibits are up again in the courtroom, a black-and-white horror show: tragic remnants of a life cut short. Tiny, plump legs and exposed bottom. Deidre’s thigh embroidered in ugly bruises. A sickening reminder of a baby murdered.
The court is silent, apart from a cry somewhere within it: a thin, shrill cry that lingers like a soprano’s voice in the dying moments of an opera. Reynolds feels the hairs go up on the back of his neck. It is now that Gundelach pounces, exploits his witness’s expertise, to compare the photographs – these obscene exhibits – with the cast of Carroll’s teeth. Could it, he asks Sims, be possible that someone else’s dentition caused those bite marks? Sims has an air of authority, accentuated by his pukka British accent. He plays to the jury, moving his large hands to mold his words as though he is working a piece of pottery. ‘In my opinion, no, because this is a very significant set of teeth. They appear to have been fractured and refilled and there are significant features of the bite mark … which fit the pattern as it would be for fractured teeth. Also … it would appear that the accused cannot close his front teeth together at all …’ It is, Sims adds, all a matter of patterns. ‘It is these patterns which convinced me that I was looking at the teeth responsible for this bite.’
Bastard. The word emerges as a hiss, loud against the sombre silence in the courtroom. Reynolds looks around to see who has said it, but the faces portray nothing but shock and revulsion at the exhibits. Justice Vasta looks up, quietly surveying all before him. It is enough, without him needing to speak. Heads are now bowed as though in prayer and the only movement in the room is the convulsive rise and fall of Carroll’s sister’s shoulders as her body is racked with sobs.
Bite mark study, Sims continued with some obvious pride, was a field for an expert, requiring a person with expertise in their interpretation and assessment. It was certainly not a job for dental practitioners, who lack both the necessary experience and knowledge.
He is not able to say that a particular part of a tooth made a particular bruise; they simply made a pattern that may be consistent with the teeth. Each bite mark case is unique and must be dealt with on the evidence available.
Copley hits hard at Sims’s expert evidence. Would he agree that many experts hold the opinion that dental evidence is more reliable as a means of eliminating suspects rather than identifying offenders? Sims nods agreement. And yes, he adds, there are leading world authorities who do not agree with his work.
Does he, Copley asks, believe his role is to confirm that the dentition fit the marks? No, Sims replies, adding there were other problems inherent in the identification by bruise marks alone, problems that would be magnified later. The bruise marks, he says were on a curved surface, and this might cause distortion when photographed. The shape of the marks can also alter if the body is placed in a different position from that in which it was when the marks were made.
Sims disagrees with Copley that tongue pressure was a factor in the bite mark. ‘Definitely not, because you are referring to love bites. This is not an erotic bite. You don’t put your tongue out when you bite things, otherwise you bite your tongue.’
The defence does not call any forensic odontologist to
challenge, but Gundelach has the parting shot.
‘In answer to one of my learned friend’s other questions, you said that the accused’s lower jaw could move forward but I would ask you this: can his dentition as you see it represented in the models meet in an edge-to-edge relationship?’
Sims shakes his head. No matter how far Carroll moved his lower jaw forward, there was no way his upper and lower teeth could meet.
Those listening in the public gallery can now understand why there were no indentations on Deidre Kennedy’s little body.
20
Dr Brown is on the stand. Like Sims, he is highly qualified: Senior Lecturer in Dental Surgery at the University of Adelaide, consultant odontologist to various departments, including coroners’ and police departments, and experienced in lecturing in Australia and overseas. The press is particularly keen to hear his evidence: the last time he was an expert witness in a case concerning teeth marks was in the controversial Azaria Chamberlain trial. Talkative, but less affable on the stand than his colleague Dr Sims, Brown occasionally seems to forget he is explaining odontology to laypeople, not experts. But the jury, nonetheless, listens intently to Brown’s opinon. He agrees with his colleagues that Carroll’s teeth could not make edge-to-edge contact and he is visibly more relaxed as he moves into his area of expertise. Now he can demonstrate with his hands the intricacies of dentistry, guiding the jury through his analysis in the same way he lectures his students. ‘The upper jaw is fixed to the skull … and chewing movements are carried out by the movement of the lower jaw and … you get sort of a gliding or a grazing movement of the teeth …’
The lower teeth do not move, acting as anchors like spikes on a meat tray that hold the joint still. It is the upper teeth that close and bite, and the inside of those teeth which closes on the tissue surface first.
‘Do we,’ Gundelach asks him, ‘see evidence of that gliding movement in the photographs?’
Brown shakes his head, ‘ … there are no well-defined marks … due to the inability of the teeth to make edge-to-edge contact …’
Gundelach wants him to be specific on his opinions about whether the bruise marks in the photos were caused by the casts of the defendant’s teeth. ‘After making your comparisons, did you arrive at an opinion?’
‘I came to the conclusion that the marks were produced by the teeth represented by those casts.’
‘And, in your opinion, is there a possibility that someone else’s dentition could have made that bite mark which you saw depicted on the thigh of Deidre Kennedy in that manner?’
Brown nods. ‘I had considered that possibility … It might be possible, if someone was to sculpture down someone else’s dentition to be identical with the ones on the cast, that may be a possibility, but I think it’s most unlikely.’
Carroll does not flinch.
After opting to postpone his cross-examination, Copley attacks Brown’s experience in identifying a person by bruise marks left by teeth. Had he written papers on the subject? If so, had they been published, and where? Copley is theatrically exasperated. ‘Dr Brown, don’t you understand my question? I am suggesting to you that you have not written an article on the topic of identification of some person by bruises produced by the teeth …? What was the topic of your article?’
‘The investigation of bite marks.’
Copley slips it in, quietly, deliberately. ‘But the investigation of bite marks may range from bite marks produced from dingoes in clothing, mightn’t it?’
‘It can range and include areas where teeth produced marks.’
‘Of, for example, bite marks by dingoes in clothing?’
‘Or human beings, as well.’
At the committal hearing, Brown had based his opinions on three photographs of Deidre’s bruises and the model on an articulator. When he originally received the cast of Carroll’s dentition, the fillings had not been removed. They were, he tells the court, removed in his presence by Dr Romaniuk, prior to the committal hearing.
In what degenerates into a combative exercise, Copley insists that Brown was influenced by Dr Bernard Sims, just a week before the trial started. ‘I suggest to you that if one were to get in any way … an accurate picture of the shape of the teeth before restoration work, the first thing you would have to do is to remove as best you can from the cast all the restored material … do you agree or disagree?’
‘Well, yes and no.’
‘You agree and you disagree, and you are going to qualify both of those? Off you go.’
What marks, Copley demands, were made by teeth, by skin and by the tongue?
‘I can’t understand what you are wanting me to do,’ Brown tells him. ‘I have marked the bruises that correspond to the teeth.’ He agrees there are no indentations on the photograph that appear to be made by teeth but strenuously disagrees that without indentations it is very unsatisfactory to try and relate bruising to teeth. He agrees with Sims that some scientists hold the view that bruising alone is not sufficient for identification, but by no means do all scientists hold this view.
Would you agree, then, Copley later asks, that, in the absence of indentation, there can be no degree of certainty as to which set of teeth caused a particular set of bruising?
Brown remains patient. ‘I think I have answered that question before, that it is possible to reach a conclusion without indentations … You would have to recognise the pattern.’
It follows suddenly, without warning. Producing a photograph of the bite marks, Copley asks Brown to mark the top teeth that produced the bruises. He does so.
But Copley is clever. He knows that when a dentist faces a patient, the left side of the patients mouth is on the practitioner’s right. Brown is never asked a question to explain this simple fact.
At home in Richmond, his stomach tossing like a clothes dryer, Barry Kennedy follows the trial’s progress from updates by John Reynolds. He doesn’t give a damn about how the forensic dentists have reached their conclusions; this is his daughter they’re talking about. The science of the evidence makes him nervous. He regards himself as an average punter, just like the jurors. He hopes they understand the technicalities.
The dental evidence complete, Copley decides to go straight for the jugular. Carroll’s first wife, Joy Meyers.
She had given evidence at the committal hearing that she had seen bite marks on their daughter, Kerry-Ann, four, maybe five times during her marriage to Carroll, and that when she had asked him why baby was crying, he wouldn’t say anything. She is extremely nervous, her voice so faint Copley can barely hear her. Meyers has already agreed with him that she raised no allegation of ill-treatment by her former husband against their child, even when she applied for custody. Agreed with him, too, that she never took the child to a doctor or the hospital and that the first time she made any allegations about her ex-husband was when the police knocked on her door. Meyers shakes her head at each question. No, there was never any suggestion that Carroll had dressed their daughter in adult female clothing. No suggestion of sexual assault. No question he had ever tried to strangle their baby. She had never asked Carroll if he had bitten Kerry-Ann.
Copley leans toward her. ‘The fact of the matter is, there were no bite marks on her legs; is that not so?’
‘No, that is not true.’
Meyers’s reply is strident, louder than her previous responses. This witness is going to be tougher than he had anticipated. ‘You see, the question of your husband’s spanking or smacking the child – you would agree with me that he did smack her on the bottom, on the backside, on more than one occasion?’
‘Probably, yes.’
‘But he never bit her, did he?’
‘Yes, he did.’
Copley moves to another topic: names they had suggested if their baby was a girl. Meyers had said her former husband had wanted to call the baby Deidre but, Copley muses, that wasn’t right, was it? Hadn’t he wanted to call the baby Desley, the name of his ex-girlfriend?
; Meyers is adamant. Desley was not a name they discussed at length.
Well, Copley says, raising his eyebrows for the benefit of the jury; if they hadn’t discussed it, had her husband written her a note?
‘No.’
‘Well, he didn’t just walk around the house saying “Desley, Desley?”’ He sweeps his eyes around the courtroom, a mocking smile on his face.
‘He didn’t, no.’ She is no match for Copley’s intellect, but she is standing her ground.
Copley changes tactics, now playing the gentle patriarch, a patient father dealing with a recalcitrant child. ‘Look, I don’t want there to be any semblance of triviality about this matter, but Desley was not going to be the name for a pet or the name of a house or anything, was it? It was in the context of the name for the child to be born?’
‘It was in the context, yes, but it wasn’t a main name for it because I didn’t like it in the first place.’
Now Copley is showing her a copy of the statement she gave police. ‘You are,’ he questions sarcastically, ‘able to read?’
He is hammering her now, trying to break her down. I put it to you … I suggest to you… But Meyers is stubborn, digs in. ‘You may suggest it, but I don’t agree with it. I know what I’m saying.’
Immensely relieved to be leaving the witness stand when the questions are finished, away from everyone staring at her, she does not pause to speak to her former husband’s family. She has no doubt about what they would think of her evidence.
The headlines in the next day’s Courier Mail spells it out. ‘Carroll Bit Daughter on Thigh, Wife Says’.
Justice In Jeopardy Page 13
