LOS ANGELES (AP) — A forensic expert acknowledged in testimony Tuesday that her years of DNA analysis of evidence in the 1986 murder of a woman did not cast suspicion on a veteran Los Angeles police detective until she focused on saliva from a bite mark on the victim's arm.
Under questioning by defendant Stephanie Lazarus' attorney, criminalist Jennifer Francis said bloody evidence from the crime scene did not suggest any suspect when she was first given the case in 2004.
There was no DNA match for any person other than victim Sherri Rasmussen on such items as blood from the walls, a towel, speaker cord and car key, she said.
It wasn't until 2009 that Francis focused on analyzing the bite mark and discovered there was DNA on the sample that was different from the genetic profile of Rasmussen, she said.
Francis testified earlier that the bite mark DNA was subsequently compared to a saliva sample taken from Lazarus' mouth and it was a match.
The discovery shocked Los Angeles Police Department detectives who had worked with Lazarus for a quarter of a century as she rose to become a highly decorated detective specializing in art thefts.
Lazarus' attorney, Mark Overland, led Francis through a virtual science class for jurors in the techniques of DNA analysis. He has suggested that the materials submitted to Francis for analysis had deteriorated over the years and evidence containers may have been subject to tampering.
Francis said that when she pulled a test tube with the saliva sample from a yellowed, torn evidence envelope, the tube was not sealed.
"So all you had to do was unscrew it?" asked Overland.
"Yes," said the witness.
Overland asked if mold was growing on the swabs in the tube.
"It's hard to say," said Francis. "I did not see green growing on it."
Prosecutors contend Lazarus killed Rasmussen after the woman married a man who had been Lazarus' lover for a year. Lazarus has pleaded not guilty.
Later in the day, jurors heard from Dr. Cathy Law, a forensic dentist with the Los Angeles County coroner's office who was shown a picture of the wound on Rasmussen's arm and said, "It appears to be a human bite mark."
The bright red wound was projected on a courtroom screen.
The witness said she took an impression of Lazarus' teeth and was given a cast of Rasmussen's arm but she did not attempt to match them.
"You cannot identify individual teeth with a certainty," she said.
Prosecutors, who are relying on DNA analysis of saliva from the mark, then called a series of forensic witnesses who told how the suddenly important bite mark evidence, which was previously buried in a dusty evidence box, was moved to a freezer at the LAPD crime lab.
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