deadmonton - the trial of michael white - november 16th, 2006
Liana White, 29, was stabbed to death July 12th, 2005.
Michael White, then 28, was charged with second-degree murder and offering an indignity to a dead body.
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On the ninth day of the trial, jurors were faced with a mountain of exhibits – most of which came from the black plastic garbage bags recovered from Michael White's driveway.
Const. Fons Chafe, a city police crime scene examination expert, spent nearly the entire day on the stand explaining to the court what police found and what the 48 items of newly-introduced evidence told them.
Inside the garbage bag were a pair of blood-stained pants. Blood covered the front of the pants to the waist, while on the back it was mainly on the lower part of the legs.
"It would suggest there was a substantial volume of blood present," Chafe said.
The markings were in a “transfer-stain pattern” that "could be as a result of coming into contact with a wet, bloody object being picked up or carried."
The dark blue “Pathfinder by Kodiak” pants had a 42-inch waist and 32-inch leg. Court earlier heard White stands six-foot three-inches and weighs 240 pounds.
Chafe said he also found a 60-centimetre-long blade of grass in the left pocket, tangled around a piece of paper bearing the Tim Hortons logo.
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Deeper in the pocket he found a 20-centimetre piece of cardboard bearing the "Xtreme Edge" name. Chafe said it was consistent with packaging for a brand of knife.
Inside the other pocket was a blood-stained latex-style glove.
“There was a substantial portion of blood” in the glove, Chafe testified.
Most of the fingertips were inverted, indicating they had been worn and then peeled off.
The bags also contained a T-shirt, a pair of socks, a sandal, two blood-stained sponges, some paper towels and a ventilator mask.
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The socks showed a pattern of blood that would appear if an object had been struck or violently shaken, Chafe said.
The officer testified he seized three pairs of pants, a T-shirt and a pair of socks from dresser drawers in the master bedroom of the White's home.
He said the pants were the same brand and size as a pair of bloody pants found in the garbage bag White was observed carrying from a field.
Chafe said a pair of socks taken from the home were similar in colour, size and weave pattern to the pair of "heavily" blood-stained socks found in the seized bags.
In addition, the T-shirt seized from the home and T-shirts worn by White in three photos seized from the home were similar to the bloody T-shirt found in the bags.
All of the T-shirts involved had crown and shield symbols on them and the banner "Strathcona's."
The T-shirt, Chafe told the jury, "appears identical in colouration and the logo, certainly very similar if not identical."
Chafe said all the items found in the bag contained the DNA of either Liana White or Michael White or both.
The police expert also testified he seized paper towel rolls and sponges from the home which were similar to bloody ones found in the garbage bag and a lamp from the home which was identical to a broken one found in the seized bags.
Several containers of cleaning products found in the White's home also had blood on them.
Chafe also testified as to what he found near Liana's abandoned SUV and at the body recovery site.
He said when Liana's naked body was found in the rural ditch, a bra was at her feet with a pair of underwear at her head.
In the Ford Explorer he discovered a piece of tree bark slightly embedded in the driver’s seat.
At the SUV site, Chafe said he found no signs of a struggle such as scuff marks. Nearby he discovered several items including Liana's cellphone and assorted identification and store cards.
One, a Hudson's Bay card, was in a garbage can, he said.
The objects followed a curving route that led northwest from the SUV, in the same general direction as Richard's Pub.
"To me, it suggested that things seemed to be carefully placed at the scene," Chafe said.
The trial continued November 21st, 2006