Defendants Looking for Aid and Comfort(er)
In the weeks leading up to the September 11 status hearing the defense renewed their call for the prosecution to turn over evidence, particularly items related to a bed. “A” bed, as in which bed?
An educated guess would be the one Robert was found on the evening of August 2, 2006, but there is serious question about the other bed on the Swann Street second floor – the one Dylan Ward occupied.
Defendants and counsel discuss evidence requests
Much of this was spelled out in the defense team’s Motion For Discovery, Inspection and Testing, filed on September 4th.
They didn’t waste a moment getting to what they thought would be important to their case: specifically those items found on the guest bed.
Items included, but were not limited to, a fitted bed sheet, pillowcases, a comforter, and a mattress pad.
The defense got a tad snippy when they pointed out the prosecution’s lack of schooling in the gentle art of domesticity by noting the difference between a mattress pad and a comforter. Obviously, someone in the MPD or USAO missed both Martha Stewart’s show on how to make a bed and a class on the proper tagging and cataloging of evidence.
It seems that the defense is focusing their fishing expedition on the bed and related items because this is their best hope of finding foreign DNA, which would help support the “intruder” theory.
When it came to outstanding requests, the defense called out the prosecution’s slow walking turning over FBI case files.
They claimed the September 11 hearing date was set to allow them to have enough time to have their own experts test the evidence since they received it from the Government only one week prior to the hearing.
Also requested were expert witness disclosures and the redacted documents, which the Judge Weisberg granted in camera review the following week.
After the September 11th hearing, supplemental memoranda were released in support of pending discovery motions on September 14th.
Again, the defense badgers the prosecution for not turning over key evidence including these bed linens, the knife, the fibers recovered from the knife, storage bags used by the EMTs, and materials used to transport Robert’s remains – the body bags.
It would be a miracle if any of these items have not been lost or spoiled by improper or haphazard storage that the MPD is famous for.
And so the defense is looking for anything under the sun, and bed, for the most miniscule or microscopic piece of evidence, but what they seem to have lost sight of is what was actually missing from the mattress itself, what no one found any trace of — Robert Wone’s blood.
The defense team has made their bed, and now they have to sleep in it.
-posted by David and Doug
And what that OTHER bed. The one that dear Dylan slept like an angel in night after night. The one which has a comforter that has potential blood evidence on it. Guess they didn’t want to talk about that one much. They want to focus on the room where Robert was supposed to have been. Where Robert DNA SHOULD be found according to their story.
Is there any DNA evidence showing Robert was anywhere else in that house, like Dylan’s room? Upstairs in Joe’s room? DNA evidence, like hair, that shows he was in another rooms prior to and/or after death? There’s that blood spot from Dylan’s comforter. What about that? Any news on that? Or is that getting swept under the rug (along with any other useful DNA)?
Yes, CD, the smoking guns/beds in this case are probably Dylan’s and/or Joe’s beds, although “foreign” DNA there may also be present due in part to the openness of the Price-Zaborsky and Price-Ward unions.
I do not understand the fussiness over the comforter vis-a-vis the mattress pad: is it yet another smokescreen from General Price himself?
The guest bedroom was for guests of all sorts, I suppose. A whole gamut of people may have stayed or been there — from relatives to colleagues to friends to servants to tricks. Would their DNA be still there on that particular bed, and isn’t that what the defense wants — more cloudiness to approach the “without a reasonable doubt” threshold? Disgusting!
i bet it’s a “look over there! ploy by the defense. Draw attention away from the one little bit of crucial evidence that is NOT in the guestroom.
Again, being that Joe et al never mentioned Robert never having entered Dylan OR Joe’s bedroom, it would quite interesting to find a strand of hair or blood evidence from Robert in either room.
I wonder if some of the lawyers here can talk about these requests. Are they typical of a case involving a lot of DNA samples? All the lab notes and documentation?
Are these just delay tactics??
hi team, and love to all; and good week end to all; save for that filthy gang on aerial way – including you marcia the enabler.
to the extent that dillion the craptacular may have dropped the kids off at the pool in the bedroom (at least as suggested on alt.com), i am very reluctant to learn what the dna samples from dyl’s room or the master bedroom may reveal. i remain most interested in police interview notes and statements from the defendants AND their supporters (sarah, brother michael, et al.); particularly when the “official story” as to what happened was “fluid”. however, if there are traces of WONE blood anywhere on the 2nd or 3rd floor (save the room where he was found) then it’s time that victor ran for the nearest exit. i hope his attorneys and counselors realize this.
bring on the fall weather — much peace.
This point is minor, but what would the defense want with the couch/sofa fabric in the guest room? If, according to the intruder(s) theory, Robert was injected, raped, and then stabbed on the bed by an unknown assailant wearing gloves, then why extend the fishing net to the couch, if only to get “foreign” DNA from previous guests to confuse the eventual jury? Or, are they actually saying that there is an outside chance that Robert was raped or stabbed on the couch/sofa to explain away the absence of blood on the bedding? Anything will do for the defense, I guess, except the truth.
“O, what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive,” as Sir Walter Scott wrote almost two centuries ago.
Clio,
The defendant’s intruder theory does not include being injected or raped. They will heavily contest both those theories put forward by the prosectution. At the September 11 status hearing the defendants counsel was all up in the prosecution trying to paint the picture that the puncture wounds could have come from efforts to revive Robert on the way to the hospital. This is why they were going after all the radio communications between the ambulance crew and hospital officials. And as for the sexual assault, they are going to say that none occurred because, as the ever wise Themis has articulated, the procedure detecting the semen actually pushed the semen into his rectum and it was never there in the first place. See what a million dollar defense will buy you. All the intruder theory includes is that he was stabbed by someone wearing gloves.
David, co-ed
and I suppose that same procedure made spill onto his thighs? funny no semen has been founds on his hands if he did it himself. it’s one thing to say it, but there is no evidence to support such a claim.
how about so detailed information about this supposed procedure.
hook line and sinker sometimes.
David said: “At the September 11 status hearing the defendants counsel was all up in the prosecution trying to paint the picture that the puncture wounds could have come from efforts to revive Robert on the way to the hospital.”
Im relatively new with this case so im sorry for advance for asking possibly stupid question, but as I have understood, the paramedics first in the scene saw the puncture wounds on the victim? If thats the case, then how it’s possible to claim that those wound came later on the way to hospital? In other words are they saying that the paramedics are lying?
First, Robert was dead at the scene. The emergency personal said he was dead for some time. Emergency procedures aren’t done on dead bodies.
And even if the defense tries to say the injection marks came from emergency procedures at Swann street or on the way to the hospital, it would be a relatively easy task to debunk that notion. It’s just another smoke screen.
So, a few things.
1. It has been said that “First Responders” were at the scene. That doesn’t mean who got there first, it means the level of technical expertise they have. First Responders can only give basic medical care. (But remember, Robert was dead.)
2. Emergency personnel go by standard protocol and procedures. It would be easy as pie for the prosecution to look up the protocol used that night. (But remember, Robert was dead.)
3. The District of Columbia Adult Pre-Hospital Medical Protocols Manual, which can be found on the District of Columbia government website, details emergency procedures for trauma calls. (But Robert was dead.)
4. And to make it even easier, here’s the list of approved medications ALS (Advanced Life Support) and BLS (Basic Life Support) operators are allowed by law to administer. Only THREE of them are used intramuscularly. And none of those three would be used for a stabbing victim. Let alone a DEAD stabbing victim.
Activated Charcoal BLS
Albuterol Sulfate Proventil BLS
Aspirin BLS
Atropine Sulfate ALS
Calcium Chloride ALS
Dextrose 50% (D50) ALS
Diazepam Valium ALS
Diphenhydramine HCL Benadryl ALS
Epinephrine 1:1,000 Adrenalin BLS
Epinephrine 1:10,000 Adrenalin ALS
Flumazenil Romazicon ALS
Furosemide Lasix ALS
Glucagon ALS (intramuscular) (Anti-hypoglycemic)
Lidocaine HCL Xylocaine ALS
Magnesium Sulfate ALS
Methylprednisolone Sodium
Succinate
Solumedrol ALS
Midazolam Versed ALS
Morphine Sulfate ALS
Naloxone Narcan BLS (IM) (Narcotic antagonist)
Nitroglycerin Nitrostat BLS
Oral Glucose Insta-glucose BLS
Oxygen BLS
Sodium Bicarbonate ALS
Sodium Chloride 0.9%
(Normal Saline) BLS
Terbutaline Sulfate Brethine ALS
Thiamine (Vitamin B-1) ALS (IM) (vitamin)
It is what it is. Let’s put that one to bed.
Hi Max,
I had just prepared a long response to your question, but it didn’t go through for some reason.
I’ll sum it up.
I think that defense could be easily debunked by the prosecution.
1. District of Columbia Adult Pre-Hospital Medical Protocols details EMS procedures. The procedures and protocols are on the District of Columbia government website.
2. ALL approved medications that can be administered by emergency responders are available on the website. I reviewed the list and all but 3 of them are administered IV, oral or aerosol. The 3 that ARE administered IM (intramuscular) would not be used on a stabbing victim. One was a vitamin. One was for drug overdoses. The other was for low blood sugar emergencies.
3. Robert was dead when the emergency personnel arrived.
So, it’s just another smoke screen by the defense. It’s their job.
ahhh, more research lost in the shuffle.
:::tap tap tap::: Is this thing on?
Thanks, David, for that clarification, which untangles just some of the tangles of this web of lies. The intruder(s) theory then is deceptively streamlined, blaming many of the indignities that Robert suffered on the emergency and police first-responders rather than on the unknown assailant.
So, the gruesome, intentional act becomes, to Team Price, a simple, random stabbing that was made to look much worse because of gross official incompetence.
The sweet and charming things of 1509 Swann, as described by their (and, allegedly, Robert’s) friend — City Paper’s Jule Gardner Banville — in November 2008, just could not have done this mess, and, in the latest incarnation of Joe’s official story, those stupid, clumsy, and “bigoted” police were really to blame for the less appetizing aspects of the affadavits.
I guess that blaming real in addition to imaginary people does show the Four Horsemen getting paid and doing their jobs, but this blog’s exposure of the defense’s logical and factual fallacies continues to winnow the number of Price apologists who actually believe this crap.
No one, not even Aunt Marcia or Needham, could write what Ms. Banville did last year about the defendants (and their explanations) with a “straight” face and good heart.
Thanks again, David, for this insight: the police, EMTs, and the medical examiner, Dr. G., become “intruders” in the updated intruders theory. Here, in this million-dollar fantasy, the “safe haven” of 1509 Swann was invaded not just once, but also repeatedly by the investigators. To Team Price, Robert’s body was intruded upon by the mythical stabber as well as by the real-life officials. The elves were not enough, so the defense is banking upon the public knowledge of the documented screw-ups of the MPD. The Four Horsemen are hoping that this blog’s exposure of those problems will inadvertently help their cause. Even Machiavelli himself would be surprised by the level of expedient posturing here!
I can’t help but continually think that the defense is actually preparing for a murder trial, not an obstruction of justice case. These things that they are interested in and focusing on don’t seem to help in their obstruction of justice defense….it would make no sense that an intrude killed RW cleaned up immaculately after themselves and snuck out, etc. I really think they are scared that the charges are going to change to murder before the trial begins, and they are trying to prepare for it……