Experiments by a forensics expert suggest that a knife found near Robert Wone’s dead body had been planted there, but a judge must decide whether to consider the tests in determining the fate of the men accused of covering up the slaying.
The knife is a key part of prosecutors’ case that Joseph Price, 39, Dylan Ward, 39, and Victor Zaborsky, 44, covered up Wone’s stabbing death in their Dupont Circle town house on Aug. 2, 2006, when Wone was spending the night. Prosecutors say the three — charged with obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence and conspiracy — used a towel to spread Wone’s blood on the knife as part of a cover-up.
Trace evidence examiner Douglas Deedrick conducted a fabric-imprint experiment that showed that the blood on the knife’s bolster — the part between the blade and the handle — could have come from the towel, Deedrick testified Thursday. Another test, a fiber-transfer experiment, showed that fibers on the knife weren’t consistent with fibers that would transfer to a knife in a stabbing.
The defense says Deedrick’s tests shouldn’t be admitted as evidence. Defense lawyers argue that Deedrick’s experiments don’t replicate the crime scene, that fabric-imprint identification is not a valid science and that Deedrick isn’t qualified to be an expert on fabric-imprint identification.
Deedrick said he wiped a towel dipped in horse blood on a replica knife, and the resulting marks were consistent with those on the crime-scene knife.
The towel, he testified, can’t be excluded as the source of the blood on the knife’s bolster.
In the fiber-transfer test, Deedrick said he stabbed a pork loin wrapped in a T-shirt to test how fibers would transfer in a stabbing. The results, he said, produced more and shorter fibers than those from the crime scene knife.
Deedrick also testified that white cotton fibers found on the knife were similar to the towel’s, but not consistent with fibers from the shirt Wone was wearing when he was killed. The defense is not challenging the admissibility of that testimony.
In his cross examination of Deedrick, defense attorney David Schertler challenged how well the tests represented the crime scene. Schertler displayed photographs that showed hair and other substances on the knife, but Deedrick said those materials weren’t on the knife when he conducted his tests.
D.C. Superior Court Judge Lynn Leibovitz will decidewhether to admit the experiments. She will also consider the validity of fabric-imprint identification as a science and Deedrick’s qualifications in that field.
