Log In


Reset Password
News Education Local News Nation & World New Mexico

Blood-spatter expert takes the stand

McFarland trial in Silverton focuses on blood and phones during Day 5

SILVERTON – Outside the San Juan County Courthouse on Friday, Silverton looked like a ghost town, with snow pouring down onto deserted streets and businesses shuttered.

But inside, the courthouse was teeming with residents who braved snow and hours of dense, highly technical and frequently graphic expert testimony to watch the trial of native son Michael McFarland, who stands accused of manslaughter in the alleged killing of his wife, Jessica, at their Greene St. home.

Again and again, dozens of residents made their way up and down the court’s steep staircase – some with crutches and oxygen masks.

McFarland, who wore a pink shirt, looked on impassively as Gentry Roth, a blood-spatter expert with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, testified that the relative paucity of blood on McFarland’s shirt was inconsistent with someone attempting life-saving maneuvers on someone with wounds as severe as Jessica’s.

“There’s no pattern of hugging,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Joe Clayton, a state crime scene investigator, testified that three cellphones – including an iPhone and a Blackberry – were collected from the McFarland residence as evidence in the hours after McFarland’s arrest.

When jurors got the chance to ask him questions, many asked about the cellphones.

Clayton said he knew at least one cellphone in the house was working the night Jessica died because “it kept ringing while I was there.”

Since Wednesday, jurors repeatedly have posed questions to other witnesses about whether the phones were working.

Their interest in the phones intensified after 6th Judicial District Attorney Todd Risberg asked Dr. Robert Kurtzman, the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy on Jessica McFarland, whether her death was painful.

“It wouldn’t be an easy death,” Kurtzman said. “She was alive for a sufficient period of time for the blood to fill up the cavity and collapse the lung,” he said, which might have taken anywhere from 10 minutes to 55 minutes.

On Friday, some juror questions indicated increasing kinship with arguments put forward by Joel Fry, McFarland’s defense attorney, who assiduously suggested that the government’s case against his client is based on inconclusive science and a flawed investigation.

For instance, one juror asked Clayton why, if the glass was so important, Clayton didn’t collect all the glass in the McFarland’s house.

Clayton responded there was so much glass, collecting it all would be like “putting the whole house in a Ziploc bag and submitting it as evidence; it’s not practical to collect and or test everything for everything.”

cmcallister@durangoherald.com

An earlier version of this story misidentified the blood-spatter expert who testified.

Apr 23, 2015
Michael McFarland convicted in Silverton manslaughter trial
Apr 16, 2015
McFarland manslaughter trial: Law officers take stand
Apr 15, 2015
Two witnesses recall tragic death in Silverton
Apr 14, 2015
Manslaughter trial begins in Silverton


Reader Comments