On her laptop she ran the program. I watched the judge and saw that her eyes were sharply focused on the wall screen. The re-creation began with a front view of Lucinda Sanz’s house from a photograph Arslanian had taken on the field trip with Bosch. The door opened and a male avatar — a generic digital creation — exited. The door was slammed by an unseen hand behind him. The man went down the three steps of the stoop, left the stone path, and started slowly crossing the lawn on a diagonal. The front door opened again and a female avatar emerged carrying a handgun in her left hand. As the man crossed the lawn away from her, she raised the weapon to a high-ready position, aimed, and fired. The man was hit; he dropped immediately to his knees and then pitched forward to the ground. The woman fired again and this bullet struck the man while he was down. The bullets left red tracer lines from gun to target.
“This is what the investigators and prosecutors originally said happened,” Arslanian said.
“And is what they said happened possible?” I asked.
“Not in the world of physics that I know,” Arslanian said.
“Please tell the court why.”
“Because, Your Honor, there are variables, such as the victim’s speed in crossing the lawn. As you saw from the re-creation, after the door was slammed shut, he had to walk very slowly across the lawn in order to be at the spot where he was shot and fell to the ground.”
Morris stood and objected.
“Your Honor, this is pure conjecture and speculation, not fact,” he complained.
Before I could even begin to reply, Coelho responded to the prosecutor.
“She called it a variable, Mr. Morris,” the judge said. “I would like to hear the variables and hope they are supported by facts before rendering a decision on this demonstration. Continue, Dr. Arslanian.”
I took it as a good sign that the judge addressed Arslanian as “Doctor.”
Arslanian continued. “In every interview Lucinda Sanz has given, from the night of the murder to the most recent interviews with her attorney and investigator, she has maintained that she slammed the front door after her ex-husband left the house. She then would have had to reopen the door to step out to shoot. That is a variable of time, which includes the question of where and how she retrieved the gun, and it makes it highly unlikely that Roberto Sanz was only fourteen feet from the stoop when he was shot. Let’s look at it again with re-creation number two, which has Roberto Sanz walking at an average speed of two-point-eight miles per hour.”
Arslanian went back to her keyboard and chose the second re-creation from the table of contents. This time the male avatar stepped off the stoop more quickly and was well past the fourteen-foot mark when he was shot.
“So, as you can see, that doesn’t work,” Arslanian said. “And Mr. Morris, you are right that this is speculation, but it is based on known facts. Now, let’s add in more facts, shall we?”
“Please, more facts,” Morris said sarcastically.
He shook his head in a show of disbelief.
“Mr. Morris, I can do without the tone and the theatrical performance,” the judge said.
“Yes, Your Honor,” Morris responded.
“Dr. Arslanian,” I said. “What are you showing us next?”
“Well, the coroner’s people did a good job with the body. They probably took extra care because the victim was a law enforcement officer. They checked the wound tracks and bullet trajectories and were able to determine that the bullets that struck Deputy Sanz hit him at very different angles. The first, which struck him while he was walking, hit him at almost no angle. It severed his spine, and we know from abrasions on the legs that he immediately dropped to his knees and fell forward. He was then hit with the second shot, which came at a very sharp angle. What I will show you next is a re-creation that illustrates that the physics of this shooting do not match the official story. This re-creation doesn’t show the shooter. It shows the angle of the bullets and where the weapon would have had to be located to make those shots.”
Arslanian played a third re-creation on the big screen. Once again the male avatar came out of the house and the door was slammed and then reopened. This time no female emerged but the trajectories of the bullets were traced in red across the screen. They clearly showed that both shots had to have been fired from a low angle if they came from the stoop.
“These shots incorporate the trajectories arrived at by the coroner’s report,” Arslanian said.
“And what did you conclude from this re-creation?” I asked.
“That it is highly unlikely that the shots came from the stoop,” Arslanian said. “The shooter, whoever it was, would have had to be crouching like a baseball catcher on the stoop to make the shots.”
“Did you measure the height of the stoop when you were conducting your research, Doctor?”
“Yes, I did. Each of the three steps is ten inches high, putting the stoop at thirty inches high.”
“So what you are saying, Dr. Arslanian, is that the shots that killed Roberto Sanz did not come from the stoop, correct?”
“That is correct, yes.”
I glanced at the judge before moving on. She was staring at the screen. Another good sign.
“Doctor, did you form an opinion as to where the shots did come from?” I asked.
“I did, yes.”
“Can you share that with the court?”
“Yes, I have a final re-creation that I believe, based on the known facts regarding trajectory and victim location, shows where the shots were fired from.”
As Arslanian started the final re-creation on the big screen, I watched Morris. There was a look of dread on his face.
On the screen, the male avatar emerged from the house and the door was slammed behind him. This time as the figure crossed the lawn, red tracer lines started from the front wall of the house, to the left of the stoop. The male figure was struck, went down, and was struck again. Arslanian stopped the playback.
“What other facts were you able to determine from this re-creation, Doctor?” I asked.
“Well,” Arslanian said, “if you place the shooter against the front wall of the house, you can create a triangle — with the sides being the ground, the wall, and the bullet trajectory — that gives us an approximate height from which the shots were fired.”
“And what height was that?”
“Between five foot two and five foot six would be a liberal range.”
“And if you had a woman who was five foot two, like Ms. Sanz, could she make those shots from a high-ready stance?”
“No, she would not be tall enough. For a woman that height to make that shot at that angle, she would have to be holding the weapon above eye level. Over her head, in fact. When you take into account the proximity of the impacts in the victim’s center mass, I believe that it would be impossible for her to make one of those shots, let alone two in a short space of time.”
Morris stood and weakly objected, again citing unfounded speculation by the witness.
And again, I didn’t need to respond.
“Mr. Morris, you did not object when I accepted Dr. Arslanian as an expert witness,” the judge said. “Now that her expertise runs counter to your case, you object. I find the factual basis behind her opinions and testimony sufficient, and the objection is overruled.”
I waited to see if Morris would make a different challenge but he remained quiet.
“Proceed, Mr. Haller,” the judge said.
“Thank you, Judge,” I said. “At this time I have no further questions for Dr. Arslanian, but I reserve the right to recall her if needed.”
“Mr. Morris, do you care to question the witness?” Coelho said.