A few couple of comments:
1) Depending on the visual appearance, it is possible to determine that someone was shot at close range without clothing being sent to a crime lab for analysis.
2) Analyzing the fingernail scrapings for signs of struggle is a good point by the defense, but if there were struggle, they would probably be scratches/scrapes on the defendant and/or victim.
Original article posted here.
Gun residue test connects suspect and victim
KENNY KLEIN • City News Service • October 22, 2008
A police crime scene investigator testified on Tuesday that a gun residue kit showed a Desert Hot Springs man’s 17-year-old girlfriend was fatally shot at close range, but the investigator conceded on cross-examination that the test was never sent to a crime lab for examination.
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The testimony came in the murder trial of 20-year-old Edward “Eddieboy” Leal, who is accused of killing Lizeth Wendy Flores on April 18.
The trial is expected to continue the rest of the week before Superior Court Judge Harold W. Hopp at the Larson Justice Center in Indio.
During opening statements on Monday, Deputy District Attorney Joanna Daniels told the jury that Leal changed his account of the shooting several times, while a defense attorney characterized it as a “horrible accident.”
According to attorneys and court documents, Flores shared a home with the defendant until about a week and a half before her death. The day she was shot, she had returned to the residence on Third Street to use Leal’s computer.
Desert Hot Springs Police Department crime scene Investigator Terry Sherman testified that Flores was shot in the head at close range from behind with a 9 mm handgun, and that Leal later participated in a videotaped reenactment at the crime scene.
Sherman said he performed a gun residue test on Leal, and it was positive. He also said he took fingernail scrapings from both Flores and Leal, but said on cross-examination that neither of those were sent to crime labs.
Defense attorney Joseph S. Forth asked Sherman why such testing — which he said could have pointed to signs of a struggle or that Flores may have grabbed the gun — were performed but never sent to the lab.
“At that time, he (Leal) said he was not involved in the shooting,” Sherman said. “We are trying to eliminate him as a suspect.”
When Forth asked Sherman why the tests were not sent for lab testing at a later date, Sherman replied that he was “not ordered to.”
Forth asked if the fingernail and gun residue tests would be important to a homicide investigation.
“Yes, if there were signs of a physical struggle,” Sherman said.
“Because he (Leal) showed no signs, there was no need of that. We all determined it was not necessary at the time.”
Sherman also testified that there were no signs of a struggle inside the home, such as overturned furniture or damaged property.
The prosecutor has said Leal told police several stories about the shooting, none of which could be confirmed by physical evidence at the scene.
But when gunshot residue was found on his hands, Leal told police he had been arguing with the victim and pulled out a gun, the prosecutor said. He said it went off when she grabbed it by the barrel, according to Daniels.
Leal later said “he was playing” with the handgun “and it accidentally went off,” Daniels said.
Leal’s attorney said in his opening statement that his client was “not a murderer” and was “guilty of something less than murder.”
Forth said the couple had been dating more than a year and were “planning a life together.”
“Like any couple, sure they had arguments,” Forth said. “However, that night something went terribly, terribly wrong and it was a horrible accident.”
The couple, parents of a baby boy, had separated about a week and a half before the fatal shooting, according to previous court testimony.
Leal is being held at the Indio Jail in lieu of $1 million bail.
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