First part of this series: link.
The details of the murders came out over the course of the trial. My most vivid memory, I think, was the testimony of the blood spatter analysis expert. As she was qualified as an expert witness, it became obvious that she was an extremely bright young woman: degree from one of the Seven Sisters colleges, a long line of qualifications for someone so young (she must have been in her early twenties), articulate. She was attractive in a geeky sort of way; at least she seemed attractive until she was asked when she first decided to become a blood spatter analysis expert: “When I was 13,” she said, turning to face the jury (she always turned to look at us when she testified), “after I read a true crime book where the crime was solved due to blood spatter analysis.” That was just a little too creepy; to know at thirteen that you wanted to become an expert in such an arcane, and, let’s be honest, such a gruesome job.
When the two victims were stabbed, the blood went everywhere. It was on the clothing of the defendant: little spatters of blood on his boots, on his pants, everywhere. We learned about the different types of blood spatter, and how a blood spatter analysis could tell how far away someone was standing when the blood was spattered. The defendant was standing very close indeed.
A week ago, I happened to stumble across a journal that I had kept in the summer of 1983; and tucked in the back, I just happened to find five entries from March, 1992. I don’t remember writing them. Two of those entries concerned the murder trial….
4 March 1992
We continued deliberations today; all twelve of us shut into the jury room, with the symbolic mace leaning across the closed door, from one jamb to the other. Because of Ash Wednesday, the judge allowed us to start an hour late, and our foreman came in with his forehead smudged. Ash Wednesday I know is the first day of Lent but aside [break in the original]
Carol just came in and wanted to talk….[long digression about our trivial conversation]
I had meant to write about the jury, our deliberations, the gory incidents brought out at the trial. At least I have gained a few minutes when I have not thought about the trial and our deliberations. Tomorrow, I am cooped up again in a small room with eleven others, becoming rubbed raw, each of us, against the others and the moral horror of events.