could not have been on the left side of Richard’s head if he had fallen out of bed, and could only have been caused by a rounded, blunt instrument, not by the floor.
Dr. King has brought pictures and charts with him, some of which are identical to those used in the first trial and some which he has created from scratch. His presentation is reasonably compelling, and once I’m satisfied he’s made his point, I move on to the toxicology.
It only takes a few questions before I lead Dr. King into dropping the bomb that the sleeping pills had to be injected or taken in a liquid form, because of the presence of campene. I could lead him even further, but I want to save some ammunition for when the prosecution puts on its rebuttal witness.
Coletti gets up to cross-examine, and she focuses on the bruise first. “Dr. King, you say that if Mr. Evans had fallen from the bed, the bruise would have been on the right side and not the left. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“And you also conclude that the floor could not have caused the bruise. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Before the pills knocked Mr. Evans out, would they have made him groggy?”
“Certainly.”
“Could he perhaps have staggered around the room, walked into a cabinet or something else, and then fallen to the floor? Could he have sustained the bruise that way?”
“That was not the prosecution version at trial.”
“And there were, and are, experts and evidence to support that version. But if they were wrong, and you are right, could it have happened as I describe?”
He’s trapped; Coletti is very good. “It’s possible.”
“Thank you,” she says. “Now, to this mysterious campene. Are there other ways for campene to enter one’s system? Is it contained in shellfish, for instance?”
“Yes.”
“Could he have ingested it that way?”
I can almost see Dr. King salivate at this; maybe Coletti is not so good. “If he did, he would have been dead when the Coast Guard got there.”
“Why is that?” she asks.
Here comes a great moment, and I envy Dr. King that he gets to say it. He waits a beat; his timing is perfect. “Mr. Evans is severely allergic to shellfish; it’s in his medical records.”
Coletti flinches; she had clearly not known this. She recovers quickly and gets Dr. King to agree that the campene could have been a preservative in another drug that Richard might have taken. Dr. King points out that there were no other drugs in his system, but has to admit that some drugs leave the body faster than others.
All in all, he has been a very good witness. He won’t carry the day, but he’s moved the day along nicely.
Next up is Dr. Ruff, Reggie’s veterinarian. She shows the X-rays of the plate in his leg, as well as the missing teeth and the cut marks. Coletti establishes on cross that none of these issues could possibly be unique to Reggie, that the pulling of teeth and the repairing of broken legs in this manner are quite commonplace.
Dr. Ruff is a less accomplished witness than Dr. King, and she’s too willing to concede facts to Coletti. The truth is that the combination of health issues would represent a mind-boggling coincidence if the dog is not Reggie, but Dr. Ruff doesn’t come off as that certain.
Next up is Lieutenant Michele Siegle of the Asbury Park Police. I use her to recount the testimony of the witnesses who saw the boat at various times that night. This establishes the locations as far from the shore.
“So it’s your opinion that Mr. Evans’s dog could not successfully have swum to shore if he had been thrown from the boat?”
“That’s correct, and it’s not just my opinion. There was expert testimony to that effect during the trial.”
I introduce the expert testimony from the original trial transcript as a defense exhibit and turn the witness over to Coletti. She gives only a cursory cross-examination, designed to elicit the fact that the murder case was ironclad with or without the dog’s involvement.
Since Reggie’s “testimony” will be kept completely separate, Judge Gordon invites Coletti to bring forward any rebuttal witnesses now. She calls Dr. Nicholas Turner, a toxicologist of some renown who was not the prosecution expert during the trial.
She takes him through a point-by-point rebuttal of Dr. King’s review of the blood work. He claims that Amenipam in liquid form is very hard to find, and that the empty bottle of pills showed traces of Amenipam, lending credibility