LAKEPORT — A criminalist from the state Justice Department laboratory in Santa Rosa testified for the majority of Wednesday”s session of the John Gray murder trial.
Richard “Mike” Waller, a senior criminalist at the Justice laboratory, testified that in 2009 he examined a number of items relevant to the case, some of which contained blood-like stains, at the request of the Lake County Sheriff”s Office.
Gray faces charges of murder with two special allegations of inflicting great bodily harm and using a deadly weapon after allegedly bludgeoning his then-roommate Eric Joaquin to death with a baseball bat during the early morning hours of Feb. 28, 2009.
Joaquin”s body was discovered on the floor of his bedroom in Gray”s Clear Lake Riviera house around 9:30 a.m. on Feb. 28, 2009.
Wednesday marked the seventh day of the jury trial. Judge Arthur Mann presided. Deputy district attorney Art Grothe represented the Lake County DA”s Office and attorney Kevin Ikuma represented Gray.
Waller said the items submitted to him by the LCSO included photographs from the crime scene, a pair of socks, a pair of sneakers, a denim jacket, a black T-shirt, a pair of sweatpants, a pair of gloves and a metal baseball bat.
Waller told the jury about the examination process he used on the items, which consisted of visual and microscopic inspections. Grothe also showed the jury nearly 90 photographs of the items taken during Waller”s evidentiary examination in 2009.
The photographs of the black sneakers, white socks and denim jacket shown Wednesday depicted the same items several LCSO investigators previously testified had been removed from Gray at the time of his arrest.
Previous testimony also established that the bat was found at Gray”s house by his girlfriend in May 2009. The baseball bat has been established as the alleged murder weapon.
The two sneakers, pair of socks and denim jacket contained numerous red and brown stains that “appeared to be blood,” according to Waller.
Waller said he took DNA swabs from outside and inside the shoes and cut off some portions of the socks and denim jacket stained with apparent blood. These swabs and clothing portions, along with reference samples of blood belonging to Gray and Joaquin, were sent to a Justice laboratory in Sacramento equipped to analyze DNA samples.
The low-top sneakers depicted in the photographs were black on top with white rubber soles. The pictures showed numerous red and brown stains on the white rubber soles. Waller said he found similar stains on the black outer portions and the shoelaces during his examination.
There were also blood-like stains in the inner part of the shoe, stains that did not soak into the inside of the shoe from the outside, according to Waller.
The white socks shown in the photographs had a number of brown and red stains, which Waller said appeared to him to be blood.
Smaller red and brown droplets were visible in the photographs of the denim jacket. Waller said the majority of the droplets on the jacket originated from “medium velocity impact spatter,” which could be consistent with what would happen if an object containing liquid were struck by a fast-moving, hard object.
Waller said he also discovered an area with tissue and hair in one of the red stains on the denim jacket, which he also sent to the Justice laboratory in Sacramento for analysis. Another collection of apparent blood, tissue and hair was present on the bat, according to Waller.
The photographs of the black baseball bat also depicted several red and brown stains between the head of the bat and the bottom of the barrel.
The origins of the red and brown stains, which Waller said, “Appeared to be blood,” have not been established, nor any DNA results introduced thus far. Waller did not complete his testimony Wednesday and will resume today.
Nadina Giorgi, a toxicologist from the Justice laboratory in Sacramento, testified before Waller and was the only other witness called by the prosecution Wednesday.
Giorgi said she analyzed a blood sample given to her laboratory by the LCSO. The sample was marked as taken from Gray on Feb. 28, 2009, she said.
The subsequent analysis found concentrations of methamphetamine and amphetamine in Gray”s blood, according to Giorgi. It is “common to find both” substances in blood samples of individuals who only took methamphetamine because of the way methamphetamine metabolizes in the body, Giorgi said.
The trial will continue today at 10 a.m. at the Lake County Courthouse.
