It was Marisol, Rolly’s girlfriend, phoning from St. Joseph’s Hospital.
Court was due to start in less than five minutes, and Jay’s attempts to obtain a delay were rebuffed by Judge Keppler, who reminded him they’d put a city election on hold for this trial. To Nichols, she said, “Call your next witness.”
Next up: Kelley Young, crime scene technician.
Jay glances at the empty chair on the other side of Neal. He has not told his client the reason for Rolly’s absence, nor does Neal seem in the least bit curious about where the investigator is. He is staring straight ahead, watching as Ms. Young, a blonde in her thirties, takes the witness stand. Jay, on the other hand, is distracted to the point of near incompetence. He is sweating in the warm courtroom, his dress shirt a thin film against his damp back, and his throat is dry. He actually misses the D.A.’s first two questions for the witness, and makes a guess in his notes that they had to do with the correct spelling of her name and her years of service to the county. She is here to establish that a body had indeed been found in the early morning hours of Sunday, November tenth, and under what conditions. Matt Nichols needs to get in the fact of the rain that fell between the girl’s disappearance and the discovery of her remains–an explanation as to why no DNA tying the defendant to the crime was ever found. Ms. Young also processed the items that were in the deceased’s purse, which had been discovered one day before the body. One by one, she holds up the bloody items, individually sealed in clear evidence bags, for the jury to see. Jay glances at his client, thinking the same as Neal: we are going to lose.
Next up: Roy Singh, medical examiner.
It’s testimony Jay has been dreading. No one should have to witness what was done to Alicia Nowell, least of all her parents. But there it is, up on a three-by-five-foot projection screen, just to the left of Judge Keppler’s seat at the bench. The courtroom falls silent as the first image pops up. The only sound Jay hears is Maxine Robicheaux’s footsteps as she walks out of the courtroom. A couple of the jurors, two older men, squirm in their seats. One of the black men in the second row has his hands clenched tightly in his lap.
Nichols walks the doctor through the gruesome facts, the beating and the suspected sexual assault, the bruising around her pelvic area and across the face and neck. The cause of death was strangulation, the manner of death homicide. On cross, Jay gets as far as he’s likely to get in dismantling the state’s case. There is, he reminds the jury, stealing a look at the black men in the second row, not a single piece of evidence on the victim’s body that suggests his client ever came into contact with Alicia Nowell, let alone killed her. “Testing of the material underneath the victim’s fingernails was inconclusive, yes,” Dr. Singh says.
“And again, to be clear, Dr. Singh, that means none of it matched the DNA sample of my client, Neal Hathorne, isn’t that right?”
“That is correct.”
On redirect, Dr. Singh, with the D.A.’s prompting, reminds the jurors that the testing was “inconclusive,” as he turns to give them an impromptu lecture on the adverse effects of moisture on DNA material. “It’s terrible, in fact.”
“So the fact that the DNA test results were inconclusive doesn’t mean that it wasn’t the defendant’s DNA, does it?”
“Objection, leading.”
“Sustained.”
“Let me ask it this way, then,” Nichols says. “Can Mr. Hathorne be ruled out as the contributor of the DNA found under the deceased’s right fingernails?”
“You cannot draw any real conclusions from this test, no.”
“Oh, I think we can,” Jay says on recross. “Inconclusive, by definition, means you cannot conclude that it was the DNA of my client, isn’t that right?”
Dr. Singh sighs. “Yes, that is correct.”
Next up: Derek Menendez, Sprint technician.
He’s here to pick up the story of the pager, found in the victim’s purse, and to get into evidence the phone records attached to the ten-digit pager number that Alicia Nowell was using. At 7:32 P.M., November fifth, Ms. Nowell’s pager did receive a call from 713-457-2221, digits that were stored in the small device. Jay, in a few questions, reminds the jury that there is no recording of any phone conversation between Neal and Alicia, nor proof that any such conversation ever took place. “I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Menendez says.
Next up: Tony Perlman, AT&T rep.
His only role is to establish that the above phone number belonged to a cellular telephone account paid for monthly by Mr. Neal P. Hathorne.
Jay passes on a cross.
And Judge Keppler breaks for lunch.