Chapter 174 Section 23

The crime scene investigation experts brought in by the defendant from the out-of-state police pointed out all the "irregular operations" of the investigators of the Durham Police Station at 1810 Side Street, but in the cross-examination of the prosecution, the expert admitted that , of the more than 300 crime scenes he has personally handled, none have been “100% free from contamination” and, moreover, “controlling a 10,000-square-foot site … is not easy.” .Afterwards, policemen all over the United States expressed "do not understand" the expert's appearance in court, because many states have expressly stipulated that if one police station has doubts or objections to the actions of the other police station, it should be resolved through inter-law enforcement agencies. It should not be casually accused in public, let alone be submitted to the court as evidence for the defense in a murder trial.Obviously, David Rudolphs took advantage of the different state legislation.

The defense's forensic experts agreed with Duane DeVere's calculation of the source of the three blood spurts, but not the three blows.The expert cited various other possibilities, saying that actions such as shaking hair and waving hands could also produce similar blood patterns.He also showed the jury a photograph of Catherine's face taken by the police at the scene, pointing to a bloodstain on her lip and saying it proved that most of the blood on the stairwell wall was spattered by Catherine coughing made.What puzzled the jurors the most was what the expert said during his testimony: "There's too much blood there, it can't be a blow." Quite different conclusions can be drawn.

The biomechanics hired by the defense used computers to simulate what they would have done: a cartoon character with black fingernails and black lipstick tumbling down the stairs.But in cross-examination by the prosecution, the expert admitted that he could not accurately simulate how Catherine's seven head wounds were formed. The defense read the testimony of Ted Peterson's ex-girlfriend, Kristina Tamasetti, who was unable to attend due to pregnancy."Mr. and Mrs. Peterson looked very cheerful and happy when Ted and I left there at 10:20 p.m. Saturday night," Christina said in her testimony. Another testimony was read: "On January 8, at 4 p.m., I, Art Holland, interviewed Ms. Kristina Tamasetti... Ms. Tamasetti said that when she was at the Peterson home She did not see Mr Peterson at the time."

Judge Orlando Hudson granted the jury's request for a site visit to 1810 Seaside Street. According to a reporter from the "News and Observer" newspaper in Riele, who was the only one allowed to represent the media at the event, the jurors were divided into two groups of eight and entered the scene.The stairwell is entered one by one.Some jurors walked up and down all 18 stairs.Some are only halfway through.Some walked to the third step, stopped, turned their heads, and imagined what it would be like to fall from this position.Some made swings, pretending to hold the poker in their hands.Almost everyone put their eyes close to the walls or the floor, looking at the bloodstains from nearly two years ago.

Some jurors agreed with the defense that the stairwell was too narrow to swing the 3.5-foot poker comfortably.Others believed that if Catherine Peterson had rolled down such a short distance, it would have been impossible to inflict such extensive and severe trauma. On Thursday, September 18, for the first time in more than two months, a story about Katherine Peterson's murder trial did not make the front page of a local newspaper, "It was blown in by the powerful Hurricane 'Isabel' inside page".The court was forced to adjourn for a day and a half as the hurricane ravaged the southeastern coast of the United States.

The defendant, like the prosecution, put their "good show" at the end, which is the so-called "finale show". On the first Monday after the hurricane, the defense called in Collet Anderson, a young man who had been at the Petersons' house since 1999 to help with chores.Contrary to the testimony of Catherine's two younger sisters, Candice Zamblini and Laurie Campbell, Collet said he never saw a poker in the Peterson home. But later he said that after Catherine died, he and Ted Peterson went to buy a Christmas tree to put in the Petersons living room.As we all know, Mike Peterson told the police that he and Catherine bought the Christmas tree at home on December 7, and, in the police scene video on December 10, the Christmas tree had already been erected at Peterson's home in the living room.It can be seen that the young man Collet's memory is not so reliable.

On Tuesday, the defense subpoenaed Lieutenant Art Holland. David Rudolph was fiddling with the poker that Candice Zamblini had given to the prosecution: "It's really light, isn't it?" "Yes, very lightly, sir." "Hollow?" "Hollow." "Can it be bent?" "There's some flexibility." "Have you ever thought that if someone took this and hit another man on the top of the head--three, four, five--hard enough to knock the head out, the poker would How about it?" "Maybe a little out of shape," Lieutenant Art Holland said.

David Rudolph took a plastic tube from the dock and carefully pulled out a poker, an identical poker, only dirty, covered in dust and cobwebs, with some dead bugs. Sure enough, the people in the court suddenly became excited, and there was a buzz in the auditorium. "See?" the defendant's lawyer was clearly pleased with the dramatic effect. "It's a poker, right? You know where it's been sitting for the past 20-plus months?" "have no idea." "It doesn't look deformed, does it?" "No deformation." "There's nothing dented, or flat, not even an iota of bend, right?"