By Keana Sauray and Catherine Hamilton
RIVERSIDE, CA – The quadruple homicide jury trial of Jose Larin-Garcia proceeded in Riverside County Superior Court Tuesday with very detailed expert testimony from a blood spatter analyst, one of many experts who have taken the stand in this long-running court drama.
Larin-Garcia is on trial for allegedly murdering four people the night of Feb. 3, 2019. The prosecution, led by Deputy District Attorney Samantha Paixao, is seeking the death penalty over life in prison without parole.
The blood spatter analyst, Craig Ogino, has been a professor at University of California, Riverside since 1995 and teaches bloodstain pattern interpretation. Ogino has worked as a lab aid, a criminalist, a crime lab director and then retired as a crime lab manager.
Ogino explained that bloodstain pattern interpretation is the combination of science and analyzing bloodstain patterns to come up with scientific conclusions. He noted that when looking at the physical properties of blood, trigonometry, and the patterns of blood, information is revealed and then gathered to provide scientific facts in a report.
Ogino told the jury that “unlike witnesses, science is based on fact and using those facts you know that it is concrete and is the cornerstone of the information you’re going to get from the crime scene investigation.”
Ogino said that bloodstain pattern interpretation is used to determine the distance between the target surface and the origin at the time blood was spattered. More specifically, the target can be any object the blood lands on, and the point of origin is the origin of where the blood is actually spattered.
Ogino noted that by looking at the blood stains, one will be able to tell the direction of travel and, by the size of the stain, the impact of that particular instance; movement and directionality of persons while they are shedding blood; location or movement of persons after bloodshed; the minimum number of blows from impact; and in some cases, sequences of events.
Ogino stated that if there is liquid blood that is released from an object, that blood stain is going to take the shape of the object that has the least amount of air resistance as it is falling through the air. He added that that shape happened to be a sphere [in reference to his drawing].
If the blood stain falls perpendicular to the paper, there will be a clear, round bloodstain pattern. However, if it comes in at an angle, it will not be a round pattern, it will be an elliptical pattern.
DDA Paixao asked Ogino to explain how the use of trigonometry is significant with blood pattern interpretation.
Ogino explained that there is a trigonometric formula where, “if you take the width divided by the length and take the inverse sign it will give you the angle in which that bloodstain hit that particular object.”
Ogino explains that when a blood stain is coming down at an angle, the first thing that happens is it’s going to flatten out. With the horizontal momentum going left to right, a wave is going to form, and when the wave “snaps off” it creates a tail. The tail at the bottom of the blood stain demonstrates the blood stain, in that particular exhibit, is going from left to right.
Ogino stated “direction and size are very important.” The direction of travel and the size of stain on the target can help place the object in its position at the time of deposition.
Ogino also said, “The further back you go, the less spatter you’re going to get.” With high energy bloodstain spatter, the majority of stains will be less than 1 millimeter.
Lastly, Ogino said that vertical blood drops can reveal a person’s position during the time of injury. Gravity flow naturally allows the blood to move in the direction depending on the body’s position. Therefore, if a body moves after impact, the blood direction will change and reveal the movement.
After the lunch break, DDA Paixao brought up her issues with the defense’s expert witness outside of the presence of the jury. The defense planned to have him testify, and he was likely going to discuss his contention that there were three people in the back of the Toyota Corolla, totaling five in the vehicle.
However, according to another witness’ testimony, they had seen the Toyota Corolla occupied by only four people and that one of the victims had told him the fourth occupant was Larin-Garcia.
Additionally, according to pictures and body metrics from February 2019, Larin-Garcia was relatively large in size, and therefore DDA Paixao believes that he could not have fit in the back of the car with two other people.
While claiming the defense, led by private attorney John Dolan, wouldn’t like this solution, DDA Paixao pointed out that if Larin-Garcia took the stand and said there was another person in the backseat of the car with him and Jacob Montgomery, one of the victims, then the expert witness could use that as evidence for the additional person.
The defense pointed out the missteps in the case on the behalf of the police, such as a lack of DNA testing on crucial evidence. The defense also noted the individual limping away from the crime scene, though DDA Paixao asserted that no one knew who the individual was, and where they were coming from.
Even though she agreed that the defense is able to cite third-party culpability in their argument, they cannot reasonably claim there was the third person in backseat because no one saw anyone else around the crime scene, and Larin-Garcia had two of the victims’ blood on his jacket and road rash that would match with jumping out of the car.
“[Larin-Garcia] executed everyone in that car,” DDA Paixao said when the defense tried to bring up John Olvera, the man that the defense claims is the real murderer. However, the defense kept repeating that it is up to the jury to decide what to believe.
Understanding the defense’s frustration with the lack of thorough testing of the crime scene for DNA and fingerprints, Judge Anthony Villabolos said he would consider tomorrow to what the defense expert witness could testify.
The jury returned to the courtroom for the next portion of Ogino’s testimony.
DDA Paixao questioned him on the types of blood spatters that one can see at a crime scene, and what those patterns can determine about the crime. Ogino said that the blood patterns can allow inspectors to figure out the point of origin, possibly how many blows, and can help reconstruct the crime scene.
Ogino worked on this murder case to determine bloodstain pattern interpretations. He said that there were a lot of impact splatters, vertical drips, contact stains, and cast-offs, all of which can tell him and others about what happened during the crime.
Additionally, he said they used size, angles, and directions of the blood spatters to find the origin and convergence as scientific facts.
Even if the angles of splatters are different, Ogino said, they normally all pointed back to the same origin point, something that wouldn’t have been seen if the three victims had died in a car accident.
The trial will reconvene with more witness testimony Feb. 2.
