Casey Anthony - 52-Dr. John Schultz - Audio Remaster

[Music] uh John J Schultz Uhl TZ you may proceed good morning sir morning would you please tell us uh how are you employed excuse me how are you employed what do you do oh I'm a associate professor of anthropology at the University of Central Florida and how long have you held that position um I started at UCF 2003 as an assistant professor and was promoted 200920 and in what department do you work anthropology do you have a uh Subs specialty within the field of anthropology yes uh through my education my uh specialty would be forensic anthropology forensic archaeology okay can you just give us some of your educational background sure in that field that led you to your present position um my undergraduate degree is from State University of New York New York at Stonybrook he had degrees in anthropology let me ask you for benefit of the court reporter slow down just a little bit okay no problem you tend to talk just a little bit fast all right um my undergraduate degree is state is from the State University of New York at Stonybrook uh the degree is an anthropology my focus was biological anthropology um I have a master's degree in human biology from University of Indianapolis uh for that program we focused in human anatomy skeletal Anatomy forensic archaeology uh as well as tonomy I have a PhD from the University of Florida in anthropology uh my specialty was forensic anthropology forensic archaeology and while at the University of Florida I spent five years at the human identification lab which is a forensic anthropology lab tell if you will what the difference is between forensic anthropology and forensic archaeology okay um as a forensic anthropologist my specialty in that area would be study of the human skeleton so we have courses in human anatomy human skeletal Anatomy human variation other types of biological courses uh for a friends of sure the whole the whole uh answer sure okay slow it down yeah okay no problem sorry about that that's all right we'll remind you okay you're not the first um can you please repeat the question my God I can't remember it I think I was just asking you between for forensic anthropology and forensic archaeology all right as a forensic anthropologist uh our specialty would be studying the human skeleton as a forensic archaeologist we would have a specialist dealing with going out to the field working with law enforcement collecting skeletal remains interpreting tonomy at the site um the within the definition of forensic anthropology uh locating recovering human remains as part of that definition I also include myself as my specialty because my research area is specifically has specifically been in forensic archaeology and field methods and you used a term called tonomy what is tonomy uh tonomy is studying what happens after a body's been after death so that could be studying changes to the skeleton itself uh but changes how the skeleton may have been dispersed at a site all right you mentioned that you spent five years at the um human identification laboratory could you explain to the ladies and gentlemen the jury what that is what they do there um there are a number of uh prominent PHD programs in forensic anthropology in United States where they have Laboratories uh where they do numerous cases so the lab at the University of Florida is known specifically for providing a service throughout the State of Florida to medical examiners even the state archaeologists that when there are skeletonized remains they can be sent to that lab and analyzed and so as a graduate student that's a wonderful place to go to school because there's a continuous flow of skeletal cases and that would be part of our training as a graduate student so you actually get cases from all around the State of Florida that come through the the laboratory yeah most of the state there are more people now that work in the State uh some of which have come out of that lab that may be doing some of those localized areas but uh that state deals primarily with uh the University of Florida and who did you stud study under at the um well I was at the University of Florida I studied with uh Dr Anthony Fetti was my dissertation advisor and Dr Michael Warren was also in Residence there while was a graduate student is there a particular area in forensic AR archaeology that you specialize um my spa my speciality excuse me um would be detecting human remains uh my dissertation involved using ground penetrating radar which is a tool used in archaeology it's also used many other areas and it's a remote sensing tool not invasive so we're going to use the tool to try to locate changes in the ground and one change in the ground could be a burial at a cemetery it could be an archaeological site can also be a possible grave so my dissertation and the research I Contin at UCF uh has involved using remote sensing tools particularly GPR all right now when you came to work at UCF did you uh enter into a working relationship with the medical examiner The District 9 medical examiner uh yes um when I first arrived at UCF I was making contact with the local community uh to continue doing forensic work um as part of a professor it's expected that UCF uh UCF The Metropolitan University we are expected to work with the community and all of the professors I've worked with have worked with the community so it's just it's something that would be expected from us so I made contact with the medical examiner as well as the sheriff's department and I was able to start doing uh uh skeletal cases and assist with recoveries uh on a on an as needed basis now prior to your coming to UCF and and making yourself available to the local law enforcement agencies was there a local fenic Anthropologist working here or did they have to call people from Gainesville um uh Dr dpre is a biological Anthropologist at the University she's primarily bioarchaeologist she studies skelet remains from archaeological context I think she have she probably did oh no problem sorry about that all right uh Dr Dee who was a who is primarily a bioarchaeologist would also do some of the forensic work I think she did a few forensic cases and then I think they also had sent some cases to Gainesville okay but there wasn't a a local forensic anthropologist until you got here to fill that but she was at the University but she wasn't working uh with the scope of the types of cases that I do with the medical examiner all right so did you uh develop a relationship with the medical examiner office where you would be their sort of on call forensic anthropologist if they if they needed it yes so I served as a local resource with them so if skeletal remains are found they could call me up and I could be readily available uh based on my schedule at at a University of Central Florida now around December the 11th of 2008 did you receive a notification from the medical examiner's office that your services might be needed um I received a phone call from Steve Hansen and I think Dr G had also called me uh that day and did they inform you that there might be skeletal remains that uh you could assist in examining yes I was called to ask if I could uh if I was able to go to the scene that day to participate in the initial recovery now were you present at the scene when the the skull and the the first bones that were found were actually removed no uh first day I was not available uh I was not available to go the scene excuse me um that was finals week at University of Central Florida I had to do an osteology final osteology study the skeleton and I had to make sure I had coverage for my final before I was actually able to uh leave and by that time I think everything had already been recovered by everything you mean the initial correct the initial yes did you then go so where did you go to start assisting in this investigation I went directly to the U medical examiner's office all right now when you arrived there were the was the skull already had it already arrived at the medical examiner's office do you recall honestly I don't remember okay uh if the material was already there when what is your first recollection of seeing the skull or the or what it was contained in well um I remember looking in the bag and seeing the skull in the bag uh did see some duct tape um I did not want to interfere with the duct tape so I essentially tore the corners of the bag to lay the bag flat so the skull uh was not handled in any way all right um were you present when the initial photography was done of the skull sitting in its position in the bag once the bag is torn away correct yes I was there so that was documented before it was moved in anyway yeah and that was documented the initial I was there when it was documented and then um I don't X-rays were already I don't remember when the x-rays were completed since I was assisting you I was not in charge and I do remember at one point uh during the photography process I had I I held the skull up so photographs could be taken of the underside of the skull itself um if we could publish States exhibit and evidence 218 is this one of the photographs that you're referring to where you are holding the skull so that it can be photographed uh correct right at the very top of the screen the I guess it's a with a blue color change is that should be a glove of mine holding it up up up here correct it didn't quite work but we got it we got the message um all right and again did You observe the things that are being photographed here as far as the position of the tape and the jaw and the hair mat Etc uh yes let's also look at uh 220 which is cu was CU oh I'm sorry that was from a that's okay don't don't worry about it don't worry about it um now with reference to the the mandible was the Mand still is there a term of Art in called anatomical position within your field uh yes well anatomical position would be the normal position if we referring to the skeleton the normal position the bones would be when somebody would be during life all right uh I'm going to have him talk about it a little bit um now was the the mandible when the skull came in in close to anatomical position uh close it was close Okay Okay was that surprising to you uh to see a mandible still retained on the bottom of the skull from a surface recovery yes that was surprising why is that surprising uh generally there needs to be something there to hold the mandible in place just through Gravity the mandible will normally separate once the soft tissues are no longer present and based upon your examination of this what was holding the mandible in place in this circumstance from this examination would have been the if we see from the picture that's still up there it would have been the um uh the hair that had moved to the base of the skull right was there anything else in the hair uh well we can see right in the picture here there is some Leaf litter and it looks like some roots that were there how about the tape what what what did that have anything any involvement in holding the mandible into place that you could see uh no because I think the tape was uh was it here to the hair but I don't recall it holding the mandible in place in this view all right I'm going to unpublish the photograph at this time let's just take the photograph off now during your examination of the the initial bones that were brought in did you find anything indicating evidence of any kind of trauma to the bones I no there's no evidence of trauma now did you participate in planning a thorough excavation of the site where the skull was found okay I well um I provided an advisory role to the sheriff's department but I would not call it an excavation because an excavation would interpret we were um normally say excavation we're out there with TRS and we're pulling back uh surface uh subsurface soil layers in this instance I would call this a recovery um because the material uh primarily was not buried there were some items but the majority of the material was uh underneath a leaf litter throughout the site all right now what was the plan for Recovery how was that done okay um I had on the um 12th I arrived at the scene in the morning and talked with um Susan Ms who was the crime scene supervisor and we talked about how to proceed with processing this type of scene and this scene posed numerous difficult ulties because we were dealing with a small child uh the bones are very small the bones uh during growth the uh many of the bones are in multiple parts so we had additional parts of bones that we would have to consider some bones had not even properly uh we not completely um aifi yet um and it was a heavy heavy wooded environment uh lots of surface uh plant material so there are many issues we had to consider and so we already knew where the primary area was where the skull remains were located so we what we decided was we would process the scene starting there and what I instructed was everybody should be on their hands and knees we need to be removing uh Leaf litter and we would be screening or double checking all that material that was removed would go to a sifting station so we started where the known material was and we worked out from there was kind of our we talked about initially and I worked the initial location where the skeletal remains were found um I felt it was best that I started that area with Susan MIRS just because I was the one that would be identifying all of the bones that were found in the field now when you say you use the word screening what does that mean how was that done uh normally when we're doing a recovery or an excav ation all of the material that would be removed would be brought over to essentially uh we just like a screening box it would be uh some type of mesh a on the bottom of a box and we would put all the material in there and then there would be a one or two people working each screen and then they would thoroughly sift through all that material um and in this instance uh the sheriff had set up I think a secondary area everything that was even sift through was sifted through again now did did you did you advise them to use a certain um kind of mesh based on the kind of bones you were looking for yeah I told them to go to a smaller size screen I mean they I think they had two sizes and so I'd advise them that they everything should be no larger than I think um what standard chicken wire is off top of my head I can't remember what that size was is that because of the the the the bones were so small correct yes right all right um I've got some some did you have photographs have you seen photographs or taken of the process that you can explain to the jury sort of how the process went say that again please I'm sorry that was a very bad question um are there photographs that you've reviewed that show the process of this recovery to help explain to the jury exactly how it yeah the I know the sheriff's department uh they were the ones in charge of taking all the photograph like I said I was only there as an advisory role I was not thank you um I was only there an advisory role so I was not out at the scene the whole time but we kind of set up a protocol with them and they would document different steps of the recovery with photographs um were we seeing any photographs or I'm going to show you some right now okay if we could have for the witness States exhibit EP for identification do you recognize this Photograph sir yes this I think this one is they uh Sheriff initially set set up a um the main area they essentially put this uh whatever you want to call it uh uh tarp thing over here they set over the main area excuse me canopy thank yeah canopy over the main area right and that is uh was set up over the main area you're talking about the main area where the where the skull initially was found correct where the skull was initially found but I honestly I could not tell you which day this is since I did not take the initial photograph and I'm assuming it's the first day but does this fairly inaccurately depict the appearance of the the process yes this because in this instance what we have is one of the crime scene supervisors just showing she's on her hands and knees which is most of the time we are on our hands and knees because of small bones uh they were laying Flags out where items were located so they could later map them in yes now this this mapping process tell the jury how that how that worked okay um I was not in charge of the mapping process uh normally what we would want to do is document the uh spatial relationships of where the items are found in the field evidence in this instance the sheriff's department was mapping in uh material that was found in the field um for me they were they were also excuse me mapping in all the skeletal remains and so the whole process for them there were multiple ways that we can actually map a scene um one of the best and most accurate ways is actually use a computerized Transit probably be the total station unit and this was part of the mapping process that was undergone by the sheriff's department and again were you obviously not there every day but monitoring the progress as bones were recovered um Ron Murdoch um if I remember correctly was in charge of using the total station and he did talk to me uh we did discuss how that was being done correct and when when remains were found would you examine them yes if I was there so my role uh not only to advise on the recovery uh and to assist with some of the recovery I was also there um uh every day that I was in town um and available I would go out to the scene and always assess uh what type of Bones were found or suspicious material um the sheriff needed to have an idea of which bones that were located were actually human because one of my jobs was to assess how we needed to expand the search so if they were finding let's say non-human bones I would I would be able to let them know and and when they found human bones we would discuss uh what was going on which material represented human bones this is a big part of what was involved because of this environment in the small bones did the search area progressively increase based upon what was found uh correct yes as uh we initially started in the main area um additional csis work south of us all right uh also searching and as additional human remains were located um I would talk to sus and mirors and say okay we need to we're locating remains in this area we need to expand out further we need to make sure so so we started with a smaller area and that area kept expanding and expanding as additional bones were located at this time you got to move States exhibit EP we received an Evidence of states number 41 May publish you may publish all right let me see when this comes up doctor if you could just kind of explain to the jury what it is they're looking at here it hasn't changed the image has not changed for me I it won't they can see it now just you could see it before they can see it now I all I see still is the cemy picture that's what I want you to explain you when you were talking about it they couldn't see it oh I'm sorry that's okay okay now that they can see it okay what that makes sense all right so what we're looking here is the um some of the um there were a lot of vines in the area and when I like I said I'm not sure which day this picture is from this is just showing some of the process and some of the process had to involve removing some of the vines and some of the overgrown uh plant debris tree debris um in this area they set up a canopy over the uh initial area and we can also see uh we talked about how the uh all the debris would be collected so we would screen that debris and you can see there are pales out there that's what the pales represent all right so every time um all of the people involved that were in the field uh removing material all right they'd be on their hands and knees they would pick up that material they would go through it uh but there's always a possibility there could be something stuck to the plant debris and then they would place it in the pale and that's what they're just showing where there were pales out there and when items were uh located they would Place Flags out there and the flags would have the whatever number that it item was given by the sheriff's department they would document that with photographs and because we're dealing with such small bones the idea was we needed to remove those bones but the flag was placed at the location where they were found so it could be that's that location could be mapped later on is it important in your eventual evaluation to know where particular bones are found and in what um what order MH um when trying to understand how the skeletal remains may have been dispersed and disarticulated out of sight uh you would uh definitely need to know where all of the skeleton remains were located and if you could explain the word disarticulated okay I'm sorry uh disarticulated would mean when the bone bones are separated from their natural position so disarticulation would would occur at a joint and then when the bone is separated after joint all right I'm going to unpublish to the jury and bring up States exhibit EQ do you recognize this photograph of of the process again just that's a a a picture just showing where the flags are being placed my guess is there may have been some pictures taken at this point but we see all of the flags representing where uh some of the items it's not hold on a second no problem that's okay um again this is a picture showing that process correct all right this time you have move into evidence States exhibit EQ what says the defense we received an Evidence as number and may I publish you may publish now you can describe it to the jury now that they one so this is just one second there's a delay okay now they can see it go ahead and explain it to them this would be a closeup of I'm assuming the earlier picture we were looking at from a different angle and this is just showing the one of the csis uh the one that was in charge of documentation and my guess here she was probably you could see on her back uh there's the camera all right and there are flags representing locations where items were found and I'm having a hard time seeing the picture but I think what she's actually doing is it looks like in her left hand that she has a one of the EV uh envelopes for evidence collection so she's probably collecting you want to wait one second we can actually zoom in okay Perez can you zoom in on the the uh individual in the photograph please okay so that's what you're referring to yes so the location the flag she would have wrote down the N specific number that was assigned to that piece of evidence and that's written on the flag flag so that flag can be mapped in later on but she's removing that evidence and placing it in the envelope and that was that in fact done in this case a a mapping s mapping system was used in order to map where each bone was found each bone and and whatever evidence the sheriff collected they were continually mapping everything in this process right thank you now once bones would be found and uh was part of your job to basically tell the sheriff's what was a bone and what wasn't uh correct and not only what was a bone what wasn't what was not a bone what was nonhuman and then what would be human bone all right and those things that you identified as human bones would have been been transported to medical exam's office is that correct yes and I know they um I think maybe even some of the non-human stuff was probably all because I wasn't there the entire time so some of the other non-human bows May already that would have been transported and we would have looked at those bones I would have looked at those bones at the medical examiner's office as well all right if we could go on to states erer do you recognize this as a photograph of of some of the remains that were found yes these are uh before you hold on before you describe it we have to have it in evidence okay no problem at this time I move into evidence States exhibit ER we received evidence is States numbered 243 may I publish you may publish all right Dr SCH what are what are we looking at in this Photograph we are looking at um a number of vertebra so part of the spine and what we can see here is the vertebra are disarticulated separated they're not together anymore there's no soft tissue we thank you uh there's no soft tissue um we can see Ro Roots growing throughout the vertebrae as well and u i I would like to point out that um because we're dealing with a child and I mentioned earlier how when we grow our bones do not grow as whole units they grow in pieces to allow the the uh growth so what we can see here is uh all of these vertebra except for the furthest one on the right they're in separate pieces uh but what's very important about this picture we can see here that uh in order for do let me stop for a second if you want to that's a telestrator screen okay if you need to refer to something you can just touch the screen and circle it and it will make a a mark thank you all right so I was saying the vertebrae on the uh my right here we can see the back of the vertebra so this is the body what's interesting from my perspective when we look at this image here's a vertebra where the body's separated all the other ones are separated and all of these bones were found in one location so it would have to tell you that these bones were transported while they were still held together not only all the vertebra hold held together but the parts of the vertebra held together with some soft tissue and was this particular set of bones found at a different location than the skull yes these were found at a different location and we'll discuss that more later but that's significant in terms of how they got transported correct all right we go on to States exhibit es oh I'm sorry I'm sorry my apologies e ew was the next one we wanted on the list I apologize do you recognize this um particular item yes uh is that a photograph of one of the bones found that you uh that's a photograph of a bone fragment and so um um this time you want to move into evidence States exhibit ew we received an Evidence of states number May publish you may this particular bone um again we see a bone and then we see a uh manila envelope I guess with some writing on it is that what you were talking about how each bone is documented as to where it came from correct all right this also indicates 6 Ines deeper below large Roots that's that's how they would indicate where they found it um they would have information on the bag now on this one I'm not sure but this one may have actually been found in the sift and what they were trying to do was locate where the person that recovered these remains uh was in the what area of the site they were at all right so this was actually covered in sifting not something was found I think so because she says Lane five but um so that's why I think this may have been a sift bone all right you said this is a fragment from another bone correct all right just one moment if we could have uh States exhibit let me unpublished States exhibit fa now let me clear The annotation do you recognize this as a photograph of two of the bones that were found in the uh in this case yes this Tom moveing deidon States exhibit fa fa I have no OB there being no objection it would be receiving evidence that states numbered 245 may I published you may publish um what are these bones that we're looking at in this exhibit uh we're looking at right now the um largest bones in the body those would be the shafts of the FEMA so those would be your lower leg bones that attach to the pelvis and does this could we have a split screen between this and the the last exhibit that we put in which was a ew ew uh now in your opinion do these two bones relate to each other uh yes they do if we look at um the image with the two bones on the left what we're looking at here the top of the bones these have actually been chewed on by animals this bone here actually is a fragment that are you can actually put right back into place there okay I I'll publish this while we're doing that okay ladies and gentlemen the jury and now is the time for our recess we will be in recess to 25 to the hour of 11 I'm going to ask that you not discuss this case among yourselves okay we are be recess let's go back uh let's uh we get unpublished to the jury please and let's go to State's exhibit EZ do you recognize this is a photograph of two of the bones that were found um during the recovery yes this time you got to move deid States exhibit e be received in evidence4 you wish to publish I do now these particular um bones is there some significance to these bones that you would like to describe to the churry um these vones represent uh part of the pelvis so if you were to uh with your hands palpate your waist you generally would be uh palpating the top area of your pelvis so the since we're dealing with a child uh each one of these they're called oxa would grow as three bones and then through the maturity process they would fuse so what we're looking at are the top parts of each OC coxa um and this one here we do have some Conor damage on the bottom and some adaper here as well and what is adaper uh adaper would just be a conversion of fats in the body into essentially a a wax is in in your overall opinion of of the tonomy of this case is the where one of these bones was found significant uh one of these yes was found um almost completely buried in in the uh the muck and and it that's you're going to explain later why that's significant uh yes okay which one of these was that off the top of my head I don't know i' have to check notes that's fine do you need to check your notes go ahead uh the left left uh the left in this picture yes okay all right judge if we could unpublished now please and if I could have States exhibit FC now doctor do you recognize this Photograph uh yes that is a picture um of the skeleton laid out essentially in anatomical order uh after all of the bones are Rec covered and does at this time you got to move evid Stakes exhibit FC we receive an Evidence in states number publish yes please doctor how successful was this recovery effort generally when we're recovering a skeleton that's not only been dispersed at a site but it's also been susceptible to dispersor from Conor activity even with an adult skeleton where bones are completely intact it's very difficult to collect the majority of the skeleton remains and it's also very difficult to detect uh excuse me to collect many of the teeth um I feel we were very very successful here we had all we collected all but one tooth um we have uh um most of the spine uh many of the ribs uh all the long bones and then that tiny bones hands feet um uh left foot you know and we did recover one bone of the right foot um the only reason we had one bone on the right foot because there was conar act activity in that part of the skeleton and the the only part missing is the for the most part there are a few pieces here and there missing take it down had enough of that so uh this n-day effort would you say that it was a successful effort in terms of your experience with this kind of recovery efforts yes I would say very successful in terms of what was recovered and mapping the location of all those bones as well and and were you provided with the information and the mapping about where the various bones were uh yes Ronald uh Murdoch uh one of the CSI supervisors of the sheriff's department uh he was in charge of the mapping and he had provided me with all the locations right and is that the type of information that you would normally utilize in coming to an opinion uh as to both as to tonomy and forensic athology um when you say type of information can you specify please is it the type of information that you as an expert would normally use in coming to opinions yes we would need to know um spatial relationships of all of the bones out at the site in relationship to the dump site and we would want to have things mapped out right show the witness States exhibit qg do you recognize this as a a survey containing which denotes the specific areas where various groupings of Bones were found yes would it be helpful to you to use this in explaining to the jury the dispersal of the various bones yes this time you want to move into evidence States exhibit uh qg I have exhibit will be received evidence States numbered please now Doc Dr Mr Perez if we could um zoom in on this area let me clear the initation now doct does this um part of the survey essentially give us all of the areas where bones were found uh yes it does okay if you could just explain and do you have a specific um listing of what was found in each area uh in terms of the bones yes okay well if you need to refer to that to refresh your recollection just let us know you're doing it and go right ahead um I what I would like to do when I explain this is just provide a generalization of the different bones not provide an itemized list because absolutely fine too long okay just start with area a what is area a okay um area a do I need to highlight here if you need if you can't if you want to you may okay um area a in the image here is going to be what we feel is probably most likely the primary depositional area so where the body uh and mass of bags uh the body being in the bags was uh placed into the woods uh this would have been where the initial uh separation of some of the body parts occurred uh such as the the skull uh the arms uh the lower limbs would have separated here and then what we're able to do is as I'm able to do as I I walk through here is talk about how the skeleton as it was dispersed at the scene we can follow along with which parts were actually separated at specific locations and so if we look at um when I was working with the sheriff's department advising them on which areas to focus a reference and how to expand I initially started in area a and then we had people in area B not area B but south of area a so if we're looking at this picture North would be the top of the image so when we initially started with our search I was with Susan Mir in area a uh the rest of the crime scene investigators were south of us and as additional skeletal remains were found we moved further south just one second if you if you want to designate a new area of search you could do it a different color well I'm just do I'm just doing a generalization okay because this whole entire area was searched so what I'm trying to say is as we were in area a we also had people outside here working across this way and and then when this entire area was searched what I would do is uh talk to Susan mirus go through with her what uh what the progress was the day we talk about where skeletal remains were located and then we would talk about how to expand the search so for example as area F area G more material was found we kept the search progressed further south all right and as it was progressing South what I did at that point was we talked in terms of where bones were located and I said we needed to expand West and East and that's how we located additional bones further out so was this a a progressive yeah so we want to start with the known and then progress out from the known and keep expanding till no more bones are located so once you got to a point where you weren't finding anything then well when that whole area was completely cleared okay and cleared means surface debris and even the ground was going to be scraped with trowels all right and that was done over this entire area that you've yes and the sheriff would be able to provide the exact location all right um all I was provided in order to I worked with Ron Murdoch to produce this map and all I told him was I wanted the location for all where all the bones were found on a scene map where I could then talk about dispersal and what we're discussing now very good let me get rid of your uh annotations here for a moment so generally what was found in area a as far as okay area a area a would have been uh sorry just a second you cannot talk at the same time there's a question let there be a break then let there be a moderate deliberate answer if not the court reporter will not be able to take a thing down and the record will be shot proceed yes sir so tell us if you will what skeletal remains were found in area a um area a was the initial area where they located the skull uh the bags where additional bones that were found there um as a generalization the arms uh with hand bones were found there uh the lower legs uh were also found there um um with the um left foot uh how about area B the the area closest to a what what was found there uh left B was uh the the shafts for the upper arm bone humorous all right and the next closest I guess would be area or the biggest areas area F what was found there um as we progressed further I guess that would be a Southeastern Direction um in area F what we can see happened here the the trunk of the body with the pelvis and the lower legs more than likely was dragged to this area because what we see only in this area we see primarily there are some additional bones but we do find both lower leg bones and part of the pelvis and some other bones are located here as well and and those would be a a connected anatomical unit the yes so um at this point we probably have being dragged away from area a by some uh an animal or animals would be the trunk with uh the lower both femoro attached to the pelvis still all all articulated right all right um what further dispersal can you describe for this diagram okay well I just want to point out um area D all right that's the area where we had only located one bone this is over to the far left of the diagram is that correct yeah and that's the only bone we found for the right foot and that did exhibit carnivore damage which documents to what we believe clearly was going on at this site that area d uh animals had dispersed and we said if we then we go back to um area e we didn't talk about area e that was a handbone found there let me ask you one question before about area D before you get off that you said that was the one bone is that the one bone of the foot that no other bones were found correct yes all right okay so go ahead you were going to I think uh area e is that what the next one you're talking about yes area e was just one handbone that's off here in the top of the picture that's area e correct yes that's area e okay um you told us about area F how about area G okay um so um if I could just explain further area f is where um sorry area f is where we did see carnivore damage on multiple bones and area G all right at this point to area G we we we more than likely had most of the spinal column so most of the vertebra still together with many of the ribs attached and what we see separating out at this area would be the bottom of the spinal column or the the lower vertebras that would have separated here and that's in area G correct area G again it is that consistent with again an animal moving yeah still be consistent um like I said there was damage to the pelvis area uh that part of the spinal column would attach to the pelvis make a part of the pelvis right how about area H area H we start to see more of the ribs that are disarticulated or separated at this point okay and um uh yeah so ribs there are some other little bones but I'll just if I just do as a generalization like I said I would sure uh how about area I I guess is the last one we yes area I um at this point we have not up until area H we haven't seen most of the spine so what's interesting about area I is um if we start at the top of the spine we first have the cervical vertebrae seven of those then we go to to to the thoracic vertebra 12 and then we go to the lumbar vertebra 5 so that's 24 vertebra if we go to area I we found 20 of the vertebrae there so this would be consistent as if this point as the trunk is being dragged through the woods uh the bones that are not held on with as many potential ligaments uh there's going to be more ligaments uh helping to support the spinal column to hold it together so it's consistent with that part of the spinal column being uh dragged while it's relatively articulated and as I mentioned earlier um almost all these vertebra uh may even be two parts because they have not fused yet due to growth so it's consistent with this this potentially as a whole anatomical unit a whole block being dragged to area I where decomposition would have occurred continued there finished in order for that to occur would it be correct that the skeleton would not have to be completely skeletonized it had to be some tissue connecting these bones in order for them to be moved as a unit uh yes there would have had to have been some tissue holding the bones together correct have we covered all the areas now I think we have uh yes we spoke about all the areas all right now based upon this dispersal pattern do you have an opinion as to whether this body was deposited in area a as a complete intact unit um it may have been relatively intact I don't know exactly if it was a complete unit because it would have in the bags but it would have been we still would have had if we look clearly at area F clearly the trunk and lower legs would have still been all articulated I couldn't tell you if all the other parts whether or not they had separated yet the ones that were found in the the locations uh closer to the road just so we're clear there's no indication that that the body was dismembered by using any kind of tool or anything like that no we did not uh we did not see any of whatever separation occurred was through the natural process of decomposition correct would have been natural now based upon the dispersal pattern and there's one particular U bone that we talked about the U the hip bone and I forget what your technical term for it was that we talked about the one photograph you said was was buried in something can you explain to the jury what the significance of the way that bone was found is to your ultimate um opinion about tonomy oh um when trying to interpret how long the bones may have been at the site and also how they would disperse okay you may continue actually before he answers I realized I I have not g through the formal process I would ask the court to uh uh recognize the U witness as an expert in the area of forensic anthropology to Give opinions in the area though he's already done that I never formally requested so I would at this time any objections Mr Mason the witness would be accepted as an expert witness in the areas attended by the prosecution thank you so explain to us about this particular bone and its significance in your opinion uh ilam weum the left ilium um when trying to interpret the dispersal at the scene and uh how long the skeleton may have been out at the scene um many of the bones were located underneath uh the leaf wall so that would let us know that the bones had to have been there prior to the leaf fall and then we had particularly with his ilium the bone was nearly uh buried so that would at least have to tell us uh more than likely this area was um I guess simplest way it may say it was a swampy area uh there was water south or Southeast and so um it's quite possible that when the area was filled up with water uh the whole area was flooded that as somehow the action from the water silt or other material that may have been suspended in the water may have resulted in the burial of this particular bone uh which had Ur which would have occurred sometime over the summer now when you say buried can you describe more how you mean how it was found was it was it deep down in the dirt was it just in the in the mud how is it okay it was close to a big pometto trunk and which was one I think was one of the lower areas I can't cannot give you an exact measurement but I know area f um if we looked at the topographic map that is the lowest area so more than likely when the whole trunk was brought in there that is one of the bones with carnivore damage somehow it was deposited in that particular location and there's going to be silt and other material suspended in water as water moves be picked up and that process would have eventually led to uh almost uh burying this bone now based upon all of this um evidence that you've seen here that you've discussed um do you have an opinion as to the tonomy in this case as to approximately how long you believe this these remains were in that area Okay um when we're trying to interpret timon's death uh we're going to use like I was talking about multiple lines of evidence this is one of the reasons why we want to uh document the location of all the bones trying to understand the dispersal and um uh overall the bones were dry all right which would suggest it it it dry uh not only completely free of soft tissue but dry bones are all going to have marrow in them there's going to be fat in them so even when the tissue first decomposes off the bone the bones can still have a moist uh touch uh there can also still be uh decomposition odor so these bones were completely dry they were not uh no decomposition odor uh there was some slight erosion on many of the bones which would take time uh found under the leaf litter one bone was practically buried um um um in combination of that with some of the root evidence um I mean uh what I pretty much said in my report it would not be a period of around 6 months uh uh could be possible all right and is it your opinion based upon again the examination of this that the dispersal of the bones was a result of animal activity I would say primarily result of animal activity when we're finding animal activity directly on the bones in some of these areas um and I don't off top of my head I need to look at my report um at least on one of them I mean we there was some uh animal chewing even on a couple of the ribs that we did know and you know that's one thing this area was processed very well there were all missing bones and they could have been they were in this instance taken away uh by animals you know and they could have been chewed and nothing left to the Bone after that no further questions cross examination you ready yes okay now as a forensic anthropologist amongst the things you do is not only help or direct the location of bones but you examine the bones yourself correct and did you in fact x-ray bones uh the bones were x-rayed something you directed uh we normally when I work a case I will always ask okay do we have these X-ray views and if not I will ask for that in your examination of the bones and the x-raying of the bone sir isn't it true you found no evidence of any uh premortem trauma uh no there was no evidence of portm trauma meaning no prior childhood broken bones fractures any such thing um are you asking antim morm trauma I'm sorry um I'm not sure if you're question if you were asking did we find you asked me I think you asked me two separate questions all right well okay let me let me start over sometimes I the Acoustics in here are weird and I can't hear well anyway so uh you found no evidence of any fractures correct uh no evidence of fractures and no evidence of any uh twists or torquing of Bones no no evidence no evidence of anything to indicate to you that this child had ever had any traumatic injury whatsoever before her death death no evidence now sir you have before you or did you give him a paper copy of the map on screen yes thank you [Applause] print on that too small for me to attempt to read sir but if you look at can you tell us how far area a was from the pavement of the road Suburban drive if I use the scale like I said I did not do the mapping but if I use the scale on the mapping um without having a ruler in front of me I would think 25 to 30 feet maybe area a uh to the edge of the road right did you participate in the measurements at all I did not no I said that earlier I did not document the measurements the measurements were collected with a total station and they also had a 3D scanner so this map only shows different elevations and lines that would show elevations yes the total State um I excuse me 3D scanner was brought in and that's what I said earlier I did not do the measurements my job was not the mapping measurements were provided to me Who provided the measurements to you uh Ronald uh Ronald Murdoch Ronald Murdoch and he didn't what he provided to me was he didn't necessarily provide measurements what the way that map was created uh him and I look through all of the data points for each of the flags and then I came up with the different locations based on the concentration of Bones and then that map was created for me okay so when I ask you if you know specifically how far the beginning of area a and where the skull was from the edge of the pavement you can't tell me uh if you give me a ruler I could well fresh out okay do you know sir when the dispersement took place I'm not sure I understand the question you say when well we start with area a and area a you say was the primary site where the skull the bags arms hand bones lower leg bone and so forth located right yes okay and and and all of those items were in bags right uh originally yes originally before before you had to reconstruct it and set it out as you did in the exhib well I would assume when um when I say in bags originally when deposited out at the site okay and from the site was gathered the plastic bags the laundry bag the skull with bones in it you know that you saw it correct all right but the other areas where there were some bones or fragments there were no bags correct uh no bag well excuse me um no bags I could not tell you bag parts of bags that I could not tell you since that was not my job to analyze that material so then the the majority of what would be found and in a bag and so forth was all area a right can you repeat that the majority of the the skull and the bones that we talked about majority of it was in the bags from area a um I wouldn't necessarily say majority and I would say found in the area what you're referring to I would say correct the majority of that skeleton material was found in the area of a and it was only after inspecting the content of the remains from area a that you discovered there's missing bones right um I don't know I I wouldn't agree with that because uh we would to when we started processing the scene uh we did have people in other areas of the scene we were processing processing at the same time people were locating additional bones in in south of area a before we had area a completely processed the initial find was area a correct okay then after looking what you got then you spread it out you you drew a map for you said go east go south go west we had a whole crew of people so we separated them out um in different areas and we were searching simultaneously and that's when some found different bones and little pieces as you have shown us yes and then brought them back and you and you did your best to reassemble the skeleton correct yeah now you don't have any scientific evidence to tell us when the first dispersement from area a occurred do you I cannot provide you a specific time period no and and same question as to areas b c d e f g and I yes and there's nothing in your work and in this case that tells you how this child died isn't that correct sir uh that's not a question that I would answer and I did not all I would look for would be paror trauma and we did not find any paror trauma and when you studied some of the remains and looked at duct tape you did right on the skull I did not analyze it I had looked at the duct tape on the skull but I did not uh look at and analyze the duct tape itself and duct tape was not covering the nasal aperture was it sir no thank you very much roner I have no further question RoR what's a nasal aperture what's a nasal aperture uh nasal aperture is the hole on the skull where the nasal area would be so it's it's what if you took everything else away the opening where the nose would be uh correct if you would have removed the nose if you remove the nose the nasal aperture would be that hole correct and the tape wasn't covering the entire nasal aperture is that what you said the tape was covering the mouth area the mouth area yeah do you know whether the tape was in a position where it would have covered the nose had it been there or you just don't know uh possibly uh but based on what I saw there was no way to say that exactly okay because the not to be IND delicin the nose wasn't there anymore correct um I'm going to need to um if I may have just a moment the um what is the skeleton and that is U Can I publish 248 in evidence judge please yeah soon as it gets up on the screen publish 248 yes um Mr Mason asked you a question and may use the word the majority of the bones be in one place or another if you could circle on this what bones were found in area a to the best of generally uh can I refer to my notes refer to your report that'd be fine uh and this is not an exact sure okay just in general yeah so we have skull area here um this was not but we had some of the bones in here okay just in a general set yeah I mean that's kind of that's a general all right oh I'm sorry excuse me um let me look here I forgot here sorry about that and we may have something here I'd have to refer specifically to notes one of the the fibula may have been there but that's fine so generally that's what was in area a correct all right what was in area my glasses too [Music] what was an area of B uh when I put the X on the left humorous before I said that was not there because that was located that was in the area closest to uh yes close by sorry that was in area B the closest to area a correct yes that would be correct right what was an area F that was the largest larger area on the diagram area f it appears a little larger because the dispersal was out a little further but in area F we do have clavicles uh which are your collar bones and then we have parts of the pelvis and the proximal lens of both femur emera okay the shafts and uh we do have some ribs and um one part of a vertebrae that's an area F correct yes all right what parts do we have in area G area G what we see and area G is we that's where we we see some separation of the bottom or distal end of the spinal column there and then um area G we had a couple ribs okay how about area H area H we only had one uh part of one rib excuse me part of one vertebra sorry and then we had a bunch of ribs and I I'm not I don't have exact ones in front that's and how about area I area I we see more ribs but I don't have the exact vertebra but we had close to 20 I excuse me we had 20 Verte Parts representing 20 vertebra we can get rid of that photo now [Music] please no further question question any recross as to those issues sir may the doctor be excused sir thank you Doctor you may be excuse sir thank you