Suppressor issues:
I. Paint
Scratches were made to the underneath of a shelf consistent with scratches that would be made by the suppressor if the suppressor had been attached the gun and 2 people struggled over control of it and it scratched against the bottom of the shelf. The scratches were not straight they would have been made by swaying. Paint found on or in the supressor matched the paint on the shelf. If had the same layers of paint. Police inspectied the scene to see where the paint could have come from and the only place scratched up was the shelf near where a struggle was known to have occurred.
Claim on appeal: an photograph expert claims that he analyzed photos taken in August 1985 which reveal there was no damage to the shelf and that the damage thus had to have been made after the murders to frame Jeremy.
Result: The photos the expert relied upon did not show the underneath of the shelf which is where the damage was. They were shots of the entire room thus did not show the shelf in any detail. It was necessary to take a close up of the area in order to capture the scratches. Therefore the fact the photos were not detailed enough to detect the scratches doesn’t prove they were not present when these photos were taken. Therefore these photos fail to prove the scratches were not present when police entered the scene.
II. Blood
When the suppressor was originally tested a considerable amount of blood was removed from the suppressor. Not all of this blood was tested though to determine the blood type. A swab of the upper portion of the first 4 baffle plates was tested. A flake of blood found around the first few plates was also removed and tested.
Prior to trial the defense consulted with the forensics examiner over his blood tests and results and also independently tested the suppressor but it was after the police already had removed the blood evidence. The first 8 baffles tested positive for the presence of blood. He attributed this to the fact the blood had been removed previously and his was just the remnants that had not been cleaned off. The forensics examiner also only found evidence of blood on the initial 4-6 baffles he could not recall the exact number.
The results of the blood tests were that the blood matched Sheila's blood group not the blood group of any of the other victims. The only other way for the result that both examiners got would have been if there had been a mixing of Nevill and June's blood, but that mixing had not been complete.
If Nevill and June's blood mixed completely then there would have been AK2-1 from June's blood detected. This is not present in Sheila’s blood and would be a sign that it was a mixture of June and Nevill's not Sheila's.
If their blood did not completely mix then portions of their blood could have intermixed but there would be a chance that the AK2-1 was in a different blood stain not tested in the mix.
To simplify things say that June's blood contains X, Y, and Z, Nevill's blood A, B and C and Sheila's blood ABCXY. A portion that is tested contains X and Y that mixed with Neville's blood but the portion of her blood containing Z dries in a separate location that was not tested. In this case the mix would be missed and it would be identified as Sheila's.
How could blood not thoroughly mix? If blood dried and then more blood splashed on top later then it would not necessarily mix completely.
The forensics examiner ran tests of how hot the suppressor got and whether it could rapidly dry blood but the tests revealed it took quite some time before blood would dry inside. Unscrewing the suppressor would have caused a good mixture had 2 different bloods overlapped.
There was also blood on the outside of the suppressor. On the front as well as the rear where is screws in. This suggests the killer had blood on his/her hands and deposited it there after unscrewing it. The outside blood was unable to be tested successfully for blood type.
Experts for both sides agreed the blood they tested was most likely Sheila's blood and that the chance intimate mixing had not occurred was remote and could not come up with an explanation as to why it would not thoroughly mix given the conditions. Still at trial the forensic expert did mention the remote possibility that the tested blood was June and Nevill’s blood mixed together.
The experts thus agreed on the following points:
A) there was back spatter inside the suppressor that resulted from a contact shot or near contact shot.
B) the blood that was tested successfully was most likely Sheila’s blood but there was a remote chance that it was a mixture of June and Nevill’s blood
C) the wound to Sheila’s neck most likely would have resulted in back spatter. Nevill had 1 wound that potentially was delivered close enough to result in back spatter entering the suppressor. June had one wound that there was a slight chance could result in back spatter.
D) the rifle itself had no spatter though it most likely would have if it had been used without a suppressor to shoot Sheila.
What does all this mean? It means the suppressor was definitely used during the course of the murders. The evidence proves that for certain it was used to kill at the very least Sheila or at the very least both of her parents. If it was used to kill Sheila then it also wound have been used on her parents.
If either wound to her parents resulted in back spatter than so should her wound. Her wound was the most likely to result in spatter based on the location and blood flowing around inside the area. What these add up to is that based on the totality of circumstances it most likely was her blood that was tested.
The blood that was tested was expended during the tests thus none of it could be tested for DNA to determine whether it was in fact June and Nevill’s blood or Sheila’s blood.
Claim on latest appeal:
1) A defense expert reviewing the case suspects that the flake of blood might have been a flake of soot that some blood got on and thus the blood did not mix together fully. Under this scenario the chance of the blood being a mixture of Nevill and June’s blood is somewhat greater than if it were in fact a flake of blood. He did not do any tests though to corroborate his claims that this were possible to occur and had no way to establish it had occurred. He simply suggested maybe the forensics examiner was wrong that it was a flake of blood without any evidence to establish this was the case. The court ruled that this rank speculation did not warrant any legal reversal.
2) In 1999 the suppressor was tested for blood to try to see if any was present that could be tested for DNA but came up negative. More thorough chemical tests would have rendered DNA analysis impossible so were not performed. DNA tests found the presence of DNA on baffles far from the opening. In 1985 and 1986 the distant baffles tested negative for blood using chemical tests. The baffles were tested in groups not individually. Other parts of the moderator including the sides were also tested for DNA.
Results: The parts other than the baffles tested positive for multiple DNA, the majority of which belonged to 1 or 2 females. The exact number of people the DNA belonged to could not be ascertained but at minimum 2 individuals.
The baffles tested positive for June DNA and most likely Sheila’s DNA as well because 17 markers matched which creates a high match probability. There was a faint signature of DNA from someone else that the defense said he believes is male though the results were so small that normally one cannot tell the gender so he had no real basis to say so for sure.
Defense claim:
Since June’s DNA was inside and her blood alone could not have been the blood discussed at trial and there was a hint of male DNA that suggests the blood referenced a trial was in fact June and Nevill’s blood mixed together not Sheila’s blood.
These findings clearly permit that June, Sheila and Nevill’s blood was in the suppressor. They do not rule out that Sheila’s DNA was in there they suggest it was. There is in fact a possibility all of them had blood deposited inside though yet again the most likely to do so would be Sheila based on the nature of her injury. The chance of her wound not featuring back spatter was relatively low. The chance of her wound not causing back spatter if Nevill or June’s cause spatter would be even lower. These findings are unable to establish that the blood tested by the experts for the trial was definitely June and Nevill’s blood and not Sheila’s.
A) blood could be deposited in different places. Thus it is possible that the dried flake was Sheila’s blood alone and yet June and Nevill’s blood was deposited elsewhere prior to this flake entering and drying into a flake. You need to test the exact blood that was tested in 1985/86 for DNA to say whose DNA that particular blood belonged to but that is not possible.
B) By the time that the DNA tests were run there was very little blood left and almost certainly contamination in some form. There was either DNA contamination or the baffles were reassembled out of order from where they were originally. Tests done in 1985/86 ruled out blood beyond the 8th baffle. Yet DNA was found on all batches of baffles (again the baffles were tested in batches not individually). Tests in 1999 for blood proved negative. The only way to know for sure if any blood were missed would have been chemical tests that would have prevented DNA so we have no way to know if the DNA was from blood. If it were from blood that would suggest 1 or more of the first 7 baffles (first seven at the time of the murders) was placed further back in the suppressor at some point. For example. Suppose the jury or whoever else took it apart had placed baffles 2 and 3 in the 14th and 16th position and baffles 1 and 4 in the 9 and 11th position. This throws everything off. The tests were baffles 1-7 in one group, 8-11 in another and 12-17. The result would be that it looks like blood flew end to end. But that is only because of the error in reassembling it and testing the baffles in groups. If the baffles were not tested in groups, it had been established that the DNA was blood based and came back for DNA on baffles 2, 3, 5, 9, 11, 14, and 16 that would prove the baffles were moved at some point because the far baffles tested negative for blood. Since we don’t know the DNA was from blood it could have come from contamination unrelated to the shootings we can’ be sure it was from blood.
If we make leaps that this was definitely blood based DNA from the murders it doesn’t prove the flake tested was Nevill and June’s DNA all 3 of their blood could have been in the suppressor. We are in no better place than the experts at the original trial. Based on this evidence we can’t say the blood was most likely June and Nevill’s not Sheila’s. It still most likely was Sheila’s.
Even if it could be proved that it was June and Nevill’s blood not Sheila’s I don’t see how this helps much. That simply would corroborate that the gun had a suppressor when used on June and Nevill and corroborate it was used to make the marks under the shelf. Jeremy insists the gun had no suppressor when he left it out. Which means Sheila can’t have just picked it up off the kitchen table in the middle of a rage. She had to go to the closet and take out the suppressor and install it. It was on when she attacked her father in the bedroom and still on when she went downstairs to fight him and kill him. It was still on when she went back upstairs to deliver the near contact shot to make sure June was dead. Then she could not kill herself with it so removed it. But instead of leaving it out she took the time to go downstairs, put it in the closet and then went back upstairs to kill herself. Why would she do that? These are not actions that would make sense for someone sane about to commit suicide let alone someone supposedly in a crazy rage. Hiding the suppressor in the closet only makes sense for someone who doesn’t want anyone to know it was used. Someone who murders everyone with it but needs to remove it in order to commit suicide would take it off, leave it near their body and then commit suicide. Seeking out the suppressor to put it on also makes little sense. Her parents were in the same bedroom and would hear the shots regardless of the suppressor given how close they were to her. If there were other adults in the house who could hear the shots and take action then it would make sense to try to be as silent as possible.
Planning ahead by seeking out the silencer and removing the bedroom phone are not consistent with a crazy person going into a rage and grabbing a gun lying in front of her. It supports the suicide frame he was convicted of. He needed evidence that the silencer was not used at all but that still doesn’t discount all the other evidence anyway.
