iood spatter challenge

From page 1

last year and won a retrial.
The key to the appeal. a

| challenge to the imperfect sci-.

ence of blood spatter analysis.
proved to be a crucial element
| for the undecided jury to con-
sider. .
| The case traces back to the
evening of May 18, 1992,
when O'Grady called 9-1-1 to
A report that his wife had been

murdered. West Vancouver
police officers arrived to find
Beverly O'Grady dead on the
kitchen floor, slumped in a
pool of blood, with her hus-
bund Gerald cradling her. The
couple had been married for
more than 35 years.

Gerald O’Grady told the
police that it must have been
an intruder, as he was watch-
ing television in the apart-
ment’s den at the time.

He claims that he discov-
ered his wife clinging to life
when he went for coffee. and
he tried in vain to resuscitate
her.

In O'Grady’s first trial.
forensic pathologist Dr.
James Rex Ferris testified that
the pattern of blood specks on
O'Grady's clothing was con-
sistent with a scenario of the
husband crouching over his
wife and stabbing her repeat-

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edly, with blood droplets dis-
persed in an arc with an 18-
inch radius.

In the second trial, the
defence called upon a rival
forensic scientist. Dan
Christman, a blood spatter
analysis expert with the
Skagit County coroner's

Wednesday, July 17, 1996 - North Shore News ~ 13

office near Seattle.

Christman. did not deny
Ferris’ scenario, but he testi-
fied that it was just as likely
that the blood spatter pattern
could have resulted from a
combination of mouth-to-
mouth, O°Grady pulling a
plastic bag out of his wife's
throat and the spraying of
blood as he walked on the
kitchen floor.

“This neutralized the most

important evidence,” said
defence lawyer Danny
Markovitz.

The young lawyer and his
senior, veteran defender Jim
Hogan. also argued that the
police did not rule out the
O’Grady’s adult adopted son,
now 34, an extreme paranoid
schizophrenic, as a possible
suspect. One week before the
trial, the adopted son found
out, about his natural mother.

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