“Yes, Your Honor.”
We returned to our places and I asked Lisa the question again.
“Did Don Driscoll ever contact you on Facebook or anywhere else and say he worked for ALOFT?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Are you familiar with ALOFT?”
“Yes. That is the name of the foreclosure mill that banks like WestLand use to file all the paperwork on their foreclosures.”
“Was this company involved in the foreclosure of your home?”
“Yes, totally.”
“Is ALOFT an acronym? Do you know what it stands for?”
“A. Louis Opparizio Financial Technologies. That’s the name of the company.”
“Now, what would it mean to you if this person Donald Driscoll, who was one of your friends on Facebook, was employed by ALOFT?”
“It would mean that somebody from ALOFT was getting all my posts.”
“So, essentially, this person Driscoll would know where you’ve been and where you’re going, correct?”
“That’s correct.”
“He would have been privy to your posts from last September that said you had found Mr. Bondurant’s parking spot at the bank and that you were going to wait for him, correct?”
“Yes, correct.”
“Thank you, Lisa. I have nothing further.”
On my way back to my seat I had to steal a glance at Freeman. She was no longer beaming. She was staring straight ahead. I then looked out into the gallery for Maggie, but she was gone.
Forty-three
The afternoon belonged to Shamiram Arslanian, my forensics expert from New York. I had used Shami to great effect in previous trials and that was again the plan here. She had degrees from Harvard, MIT and John Jay, was currently a research fellow at the latter, and had a winning and telegenic personality. On top of that she had an integrity that shone through on the witness stand with every word of testimony. She was a defense lawyer’s dream. No doubt, she was a gun for hire but she took the job only if she believed in the science and in what she was going to say on the stand. What’s more, there was a bonus for me in this case. She was the exact same height as my client.
During the lunch break Arslanian had set up a mannequin in front of the jury box. It was a male figure standing exactly six foot two and a half inches tall, the same height as Mitchell Bondurant in his shoes. It wore a suit similar to the one Bondurant was wearing on the morning of his murder and the exact same shoes. The mannequin had joints that allowed for a full range of natural human motion.
After court resumed and my witness took the stand, I took my time going through her voluminous bona fides. I wanted the jurors to understand this woman’s accomplishments and to like her offhand manner of answering questions. I also wanted them to realize that her skills and knowledge put her on a different plane than the state’s forensic witnesses. A higher plane.
Once the impression had been made I got down to the business of the mannequin.
“Now, Dr. Arslanian, I asked you to review aspects of the murder of Mitchell Bondurant, is that true?”
“Yes, you did.”
“And in particular I wanted to examine the physics of the crime, true?”
“Yes, you basically asked me to find out if your client could’ve actually done the crime in the way the police said she did.”
“And did you conclude that she could have?”
“Well, yes and no. I determined that yes, she could have done it but it wouldn’t have been in the manner the detectives out here were saying.”
“Can you explain your conclusion?”
“I would rather demonstrate, using myself in the place of your client.”
“How tall are you, Dr. Arslanian?”
“I’m five foot three in my stocking feet, same height that I was told Lisa Trammel is.”
“And did I send you a hammer that was a duplicate of the hammer recovered by police and declared to be the murder weapon?”
“Yes, you did. And I brought it with me.”
She held the duplicate hammer up from the shelf at the front of the witness box.
“And did you get photos from me depicting the gardening shoes that were seized from the defendant’s unlocked garage and later found to have the victim’s blood on them?”
“Yes, you did that, too, and I was able to procure an exact duplicate pair on the Internet. I’m wearing them now.”
She kicked one leg out from the side of the witness box, showing off the waterproof shoe. There was a polite round of laughter in the courtroom. I asked the judge to allow my witness to conduct the demonstration of her findings and he agreed over objection from the prosecution.
Arslanian left the witness box with the hammer and proceeded with her demonstration.
“The question I was asking myself was, could a woman the defendant’s height, which is five foot three like mine, have struck the fatal blow on the crown of the head of a man who is six foot two and a half in his work shoes? Now the hammer, which adds about an extra ten inches in reach, is helpful in this regard, but is it enough? That was my question.”
“Doctor, if I can interrupt, can you tell us about your mannequin and how you prepared it for your testimony?”
“Of course. Everybody, this is Manny and I use him all the time when I testify in trials and when I conduct tests in my lab back at John Jay. He has all the joints like a real human being and he comes apart if I need him to and the best thing is he never talks back or says I look fat in my jeans.”
Again she scored some polite laughter.
“Thank you, Doctor,” I said quickly before the judge could tell her to keep it serious. “If you could go on with your demonstration.”
“Sure. Well, what I did was use the autopsy report and the photos and drawings to exactly locate the spot on the skull of the mannequin where the fatal blow was struck. Now we know because of the notch in the striking face that Mr. Bondurant was struck from behind. We also know by the even depth of the depression fracture to the skull that he was struck evenly on the top of the head. So by attaching the hammer at a flush angle like so…”
Climbing onto a short stepladder next to Manny, she was able to place the strike face of the hammer against the crown of the skull and then hold it in place with two bands that went under the faceless mannequin’s chin. She then stepped down and gestured to the hammer and its handle, which was extending at a right angle and parallel to the floor.
“So as you can see, this doesn’t work. I’m five four in these shoes, the defendant is five four in these shoes, and the handle is way up here.”
She reached up to the hammer. It was impossible for her to grasp it properly.
“What this tells us is that the fatal blow could not have been struck by the defendant with the victim in this position-standing up straight, head level. Now, what other positions are available that do work with what we know? We know the attack was from behind so if the victim was leaning forward-say he dropped his keys or something-you see that it still doesn’t work because I can’t reach the hammer over his back.”
As she spoke she manipulated the mannequin, bending it over at the waist, and then reaching toward the hammer’s handle from the rear.
“No, doesn’t work. Now for two days, between classes, I looked for other ways to strike the blow, but the only way I could make it work was if the victim was on his knees or crouched down for some reason, or if he happened to be looking up at the ceiling.”
She manipulated the mannequin again and stood it up straight. She then bent the head back at the neck and the handle came down. She grasped it and the position looked comfortable, but the mannequin was looking almost straight up.
“Now, according to the autopsy there were significant abrasions on both knees and one even had a cracked patella. These were described as impact injuries coming from Mr. Bondurant’s fall to the ground after he was struck. He dropped to his knees first and then fell forward, face-first. What we call a dead fall. So with that kind of injury to the knees, I rule out that he was kneeling or crouched close to the ground. That leaves only this.”