When Satan Wore a Cross

by Fred Rosen

  MacDonnell had been hired by the defense for his expertise in the science of blood spatter. At least, that’s what the jury knew at the time. MacDonnell testified about bloodstains found on a pair of socks Simpson wore at the time of the murder. MacDonnell said the blood, Nicole Brown Simpson’s, had seeped through from one side to the other. To him, that showed there wasn’t a foot in the sock at the time it was exposed to the red stuff.

  If MacDonnell was correct, that would support the defense’s contention that the LAPD, or someone else—the famous “other guy” defense—had planted the blood to frame Simpson. But prosecuting attorney Marcia Clark was ready on cross.

  She asked MacDonnell if it could be that as she was dying, Ms. Simpson reached out with her bloody hand and grabbed her ex’s ankle. Or perhaps Simpson himself had Ms. Simpson’s blood on his hands, which he transferred when he pulled the socks off.

  MacDonnell told the jury that those things could have accounted for what he called “compression stains.” MacDonnell concluded that in his original report commissioned by the defense, he actually described “swipes” of blood on the sock rather than compressions.

  Instead of discussing gloves, MacDonnell again testified on his conclusions that bloodstains on the socks had seeped through from one side to the other. The finding, he said, indicated no foot was in the sock when blood was applied to it, supporting the defense contention that the blood was planted.

  Behind the scenes, MacDonnell had conducted a gruesome experiment for the defense. He had soaked a pair of gloves in blood, in order to see how much they would shrink. The defense wanted him to testify that blood does little to shrink gloves. The idea was to refute earlier testimony in which assistant DA Christopher Darden had Simpson try on a pair of new gloves of the same style as the first set.

  The new ones fit. Darden suggested the murder gloves had shrunk because they had been exposed to too much blood. MacDonnell was expected to testify that blood-soaked gloves would not shrink as much as the prosecution claimed. But the defense eventually abandoned that strategy. The judge would allow MacDonnell’s experiment into evidence only if the prosecution could then introduce photos and videos of Simpson wearing dark gloves at football games he was covering for TV.

  In 1998, two years after testifying in that trial and two years after the verdict, MacDonnell opened the Institute on the Physical Significance of Human Bloodstain Evidence. Ms. Sutton was the third person to be certified by the institute as a “Competent Forensic Expert in Bloodstain Pattern Interpretation.”

  Ms. Sutton testified that the way she figured out the blood pattern transfer of the letter opener was to first wrap it in plastic to protect it, and then immerse it in stage blood, which as much as tragedians may try, only resembles real blood. Sutton then placed the plastic-covered letter opener saturated with stage blood on a piece of cloth similar in shape, consistency, and construction to the altar cloth. In Ms. Sutton’s opinion, the stains on her piece of test cloth were consistent with those on the altar cloth.

  On cross examination John Thebes attacked the whole theory of blood transfer pattern analysis. He questioned it as a quantifiably reliable science, since it depended upon interpretation. Unlike DNA, it could not be given the same weight at trial by a jury. But the best was yet to come.

  Even Saturday Night Live at its cynical best never imagined Celebrity Coroners and Celebrity CSI Types. They are a by-product of the strange intersection of commercial entertainment and realitytainment, which are now the same thing.

  Celebrity Coroners are a small group of well-trained and degreed pathologists who hire themselves out to either side in a criminal trial. They are expert witnesses for a price. The publicity of being involved in high-profile trials serves to burnish their reputations in academia or police laboratories where they regularly work…but not all the time. For example, Celebrity Coroner Michael Baden, an excellent pathologist, has his own TV series, Autopsy, on HBO.

  In Dr. Henry Lee’s case, he was perhaps best known for his testimony in favor of the defendant in the Nicole Brown Simpson/Ronald Goldman murder case. The best part of Dr. Lee’s Web site, www.drhenrylee.com, is the machine-gun fire, the constantly beating heart that goes on and on and on until you click something. It’s enough to make you want to kill somebody. It’s so Hollywood.

  His Web site uses about a half dozen programs to present a multimedia show demonstrating Lee’s areas of expertise. All the while, the good doctor himself lurks in blue shadow on the right of the screen, looking like a tough cop from a Chow Yun Fat movie. According to his Web site, the hearty Dr. Lee hails from Taiwan, where he started garnering academic honors with a degree in police science in 1960. By the time he picked up his Ph.D. in biochemistry from NYU in 1975, he already had a master of science from the same institution the previous year.

  Chief emeritus of the Connecticut State Police, Dr. Lee was hired by Lucas County to analyze all the evidence in the case. He also happened to be one of the five world experts on blood transfer analysis. What a surprise, then, when he testified at trial that blood transfer patterns on the altar cloth over her chest matched the priest’s letter opener. The pattern of the stab wounds on the altar cloth formed an upside-down cross.

  But in the report Dr. Lee delivered to the police, he appeared to contradict this testimony. On page 10, Dr. Lee writes, “Thus the souvenir sword could not have caused the 3 inch deep penetration wounds to the victim’s neck and chest because it measures greater than ½ inch in width at 3 inches from the top of the blade.”

  He writes in the next paragraph:

  “Accordingly, appellant’s souvenir sword, which is unquestionably a thick dull instrument on both sides of the blade, and which gradually increases in width as measured from the tip of the blade, could not have caused these wounds.”

  The only “souvenir sword” found among Robinson’s possessions during the police searches was the letter opener in the shape of a sword; yet later, in his conclusions on page 23 of the same report Dr. Lee appears to contradict himself again:

  5. Microscopic examination of the victim’s clothing and later cloth indicated that the defects or holes were consistent with a sharp instrument, not a typical flat, straight bladed knife. The unique shape of these cuts is consistent with having been created by the letter opener or a similar type of instrument. [Author’s emphasis.]

  However, on the stand, the affable Dr. Lee explained that after all his tests, he could not say for certain that the letter opener was the murder weapon, just that “I cannot exclude it.” On cross examination, the defense did not challenge the inconsistencies between what Dr. Lee wrote in his report and subsequent trial testimony.

  Next up was the exorcist, Father Jeffrey Grob. Mandros had decided before trial not to get too involved in the ritualistic murder aspect of the case. But he couldn’t very well ignore the signs at the scene either. Neither could Father Grob. On May 1 Father Grob testified that based upon his expertise, the murder of Margaret Ann Pahl was a ritual murder indeed.

  He went on to tell the jury the same thing he had been telling the cops for the three years he had gone back and forth between Chi-town and Toledo. Given that the murder happened in the sacristy and on Holy Saturday, plus the arrangement of the body at the scene—obviously posed as if sexually violated, “whoever did it had an extensive knowledge of Roman Catholic ritual,” the priest testified. “The blood on the forehead and the chest piercing in the shape of an inverted cross were an inherent mockery to Sister Margaret Ann and her religion.”

  At the defense table, Father Robinson rolled his eyes. As the trial had progressed, Robinson’s image of a frail man besieged by the system was gradually replaced by a moody man who sometimes put his eyes in motion when he disagreed with a particular piece of testimony. It was the kind of image that would not ingratiate him with the jury.

  But the prosecution was not looking so great either. On May 1, they were ready to close their case. They had not presented one bit of direct evidence
linking Father Robinson to the murder. It was still all circumstantial evidence. That would not change, something both sides had reminded the jury at the outset.

  “Call Dr. Lincoln Vail to the stand,” said Mandros, who was already on his feet.

  Back in 1980, Dr. Vail was a thirty-four-year-old resident at Mercy Hospital and one of the first doctors on the scene after Margaret Ann Pahl was discovered. In 2006 he was sixty years old, his intense eyes framed by wire-rimmed spectacles, with a receding hairline of silver-colored hair that made him look distinguished. Blue seemed to be his favorite color. His shirt, tie, and suit were in various shades and hues of blue.

  In the twenty-six intervening years since the crime, Vail had become a much liked and respected family practitioner in the Everglades. When investigators contacted and questioned him, Vail had some new information.

  He told the jury that it was around 8:15 A.M. when he heard the Swift Team call over the PA system for an emergency down in the chapel. On his way, Vail saw a priest. “He was within ten feet of me, looking over his shoulder and going in the opposite direction.”

  They locked eyes for a moment.

  “I’ll never forget the stare that just kind of went right through me. He didn’t say a word and continued in the opposite direction.”

  “Did you recognize Father Robinson?” Mandros asked.

  “I didn’t know him at the time of the murder,” Dr. Vail answered. “But the priest I saw was a match for Father Robinson’s appearance.”

  “Did you tell this to the detectives in 1980?”

  “Yes, I did, but they seemed interested in other things. They never asked me about it again.”

  Defense attorney Alan Konop was ready. He showed Dr. Vail a copy of the officers’ report. Vail looked at it.

  “Is your sighting included in that report?”

  “No,” answered Vail.

  “Did the detectives in 1980 show you photographs of Father Robinson?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you identify him as the priest you passed in the hallway?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  It was brilliant work. Konop had taken what at first glance seemed like an almost positive ID and turned it into a “maybe,” trying to raise reasonable doubt in the jurors’ minds.

  When the prosecution concluded their case late on May 1, they had called thirty-one witnesses. Besides all the cops involved in the investigation from 1980 to the present, Mandros had called his celebrity forensic experts. The question was what effect their testimony would have on the jury’s final deliberations. Before that could happen, of course, the defense got its turn.

  Calling the investigating officers as defense witnesses, Alan Konop tried to bring out inconsistencies in their testimony. Marx, Forrester, et al. had to stand up to Konop’s aggressive examination. At first glance, it looked like they all did; none of them made a fool out of himself.

  Arguably the most fascinating testimony came when the defense called former Deputy Police Chief Ray Vetter to the stand. Contradicting Marx’s testimony, the now eighty-two-year-old Vetter denied interrupting the Robinson interrogation in 1980. Vetter insisted he had nothing to do with putting the kibosh on the investigation, that his being Catholic did not affect his conduct. In fact, Vetter claimed, the reason the investigation didn’t continue was that the Lucas County attorney told the TPD they just didn’t have the evidence to indict Father Robinson.

  Next up, the defense had a forensic expert, Meghan Clement, who testified that the only DNA found under clippings of Margaret Ann Pahl’s nails was not Robinson’s. It was an unknown male’s. The prosecution on cross pointed out that DNA can get transferred any number of ways under a person’s fingernails, not only by scratching your murderer in the throes of death.

  The defense had their own celebrity, and they called her now—Dr. Kathleen Reichs. Her novels and experiences are the basis for the 2005 Fox TV series Bones.

  “Kathy Reichs is a forensic anthropologist for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, State of North Carolina, and for the Laboratoire des Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale for Quebec, Canada. She is one of only fifty forensic anthropologists certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology and is on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. A professor of anthropology at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Dr. Reichs is a native of Chicago, where she received her Ph.D. at Northwestern,” says her Web site, kathyreichs.com.

  During her testimony Reichs candidly acknowledged that the line between entertainment and reality had been crossed. “Who’s really an expert?” she testified. “Because we’re very popular right now, we’re really hot. We’re on all the airwaves, TV, radio, and books. And a lot of people are calling themselves forensic anthropologists. By establishing board certification, we are policing ourselves.”

  Reichs went on to testify that in her opinion, Dr. Scala-Barnett’s lock and key mandible theory had some problems. After examining photos of the tests Scala-Barnett had run, Reichs noticed the tests were conducted on dry bone, that is, all the tissue had been removed. Under John Thebes’s patient questioning, Reichs explained that by stripping the bone, there is the possibility of “the potential for damage to the defect. There could be modification of the edges of the defect.”

  The defense rested on May 8, and the prosecution put on for rebuttal retired TPD detective Lieutenant Bill Kina. They had really saved the best for last. Kina claimed that sometime in the early 1990s, he had been to a formal function with Vetter. The deputy chief “asked me what the nun’s name was. He said he could never remember her name. He said it was ‘the biggest mistake of my life,’” Kina testified.

  May 10

  It was time for closing arguments, and as usual, the state got to go first. Mandros chose to concentrate on motive. It was a smart decision. Besides the circumstantial nature of the case, it distinctly lacked motive, which the jury expected. Mandros addressed the issue by stating that he thought, despite the ritualistic nature of the slaying, it was done by Robinson in a fit of anger.

  That was it. Anger, at life, and the way it had turned out for him. He had once had a dream of being a military chaplain. When that didn’t work out, he became bitter and disappointed, dissatisfied with whatever his lot in life was.

  Reviewing all the major pieces of evidence the state had presented, and the overwhelming amount of circumstances pointing to his guilt, Mandros told the jury that Father Gerald Robinson was the killer of Margaret Ann Pahl. As for the ritualistic aspect of the murder, Mandros downplayed the satanic stuff, at the same time using words like “mockery” and “humiliation” to make his point about how she was killed.

  Alan Konop was supposed to deliver the defense’s closing argument. As he began, it became clear that his voice was too weak to continue. John Thebes then stepped in to deliver the closing. He mocked the prosecution’s forensic experts, harping on reasonable doubt, calling into question Dr. Scala-Barnett’s testimony. If she wasn’t a forensic anthropologist, like the defense’s witness, why was she testifying at all regarding bone trauma? Blood transfer pattern analysis? In the defense’s view, it was not science as much as judgment based on suppositions and interpretations.

  Why was Father Robinson’s DNA not found at the scene or on the victim? Because he wasn’t there! Someone else had done it, the other guy.

  Judge Osowik did not waste any time after the closings. He immediately charged the jury, explaining once again what the charges were that the defendant was on trial for, and what “reasonable doubt” was. He also offered lucid explanations for direct and circumstantial evidence.

  Most importantly the judge made it crystal clear that Father Robinson did not have to testify on his behalf. The jury was not to read anything into that. It was the prosecution’s job to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt, not for the defendant to prove his innocence. It was almost 4 P.M., May 10, by the time the twelve-member jury was ushered into the jury room, after t
he two who had been alternates were let go. The jury then deliberated four hours before calling it a night. The jury got back together at about 9 A.M. the next morning to continue their deliberations at the courthouse.

  At 11 A.M. on May 11, 2006, after being out for a grand total of six hours, the jury filed back into Judge Osowik’s courtroom. At the defense table, Robinson’s face was an emotionless mask. Despite the diocese order that he no longer wear his collar, there it was, as it had been throughout the trial. His attorneys fidgeted like they all needed to go to the bathroom. At the prosecution table, Mandros was calmer. He figured they had either done a really good job, or a really bad one.

  Judge Osowik was the calmest. Calm, cool, collected. He looked as cool and collected as a political candidate, which he was. Osowik was running for county judge on the Democratic line.

  “The verdict form please,” the judge requested of the bailiff.

  The bailiff took it from the foreman, walked the few steps to the bench, and handed it up to the judge, who opened it and began reading.

  “We the jury—”

  Osowik interrupted himself.

  “Would the defendant rise?”

  Watching the verdict in his home on live TV, just as he had the Beatles on Ed Sullivan in 1964, Dave Davison heard the loud scraping that echoed off the walls of the courtroom as Robinson and his four attorneys got to their feet. There was a moment of silence and then…

  “We the jury find the defendant guilty of murder.”

  The observers in the courtroom let out an audible gasp. Sitting in one of the front rows with the AP reporter busily jotting down notes next to her, Claudia Vercellotti blinked. She had been in the courtroom all along, every day, watching the proceedings. Even though she felt the defense had presented a weak case, she was still overwhelmed by the verdict.