Expendable For A Cause.

Blood Evidence: No Comparison

One of the weapons used to kill Mary Cannon was a milk glass lamp stand. The dried blood on the glass was tested in a laboratory. It was discovered that the PGM markers did not match Cannon, nor did they match Richard Ramirez. This might suggest that the killer cut himself while smashing the glass. Alternatively, perhaps he was already bleeding from cutting himself with the knife when he picked up the lamp stand.

There was also a blood-stained mitten at the Cannon crime scene. The PGM subtype matched both Richard Ramirez and Mary Cannon. Further testing by electrophoresis conclusively proved that Ramirez was not the source of this blood either.

Three days after Mary Cannon was murdered, teenager Whitney Bennett was almost beaten and strangled to death just two miles away. Many objects in the room were covered in Bennett’s blood, except the window sash. Somebody had smeared Type A blood over it. Whitney Bennett was Type O. So was Richard Ramirez.

Little was said about the Type A blood at trial. In Philip Carlo’s biography, it briefly mentions that Ramirez’s attorney, Ray Clark, was not ready to proceed because “the Special Master was still having difficulty getting samples of evidence from the prosecutor’s office” (pg. 303). Does this mean that the Bennett scene blood was never released at trial? What motive might the prosecutor have had for withholding this evidence? Although the Habeas Corpus does not talk about this, it constitutes a Brady violation: when a prosecutor fails to provide a defendant or criminal defence attorneys with any favourable or helpful evidence to a defendant’s case. The defence should then file a Brady motion, but Ramirez’s team failed to do so.

The two crime scenes were attended by the same forensic serologist, Giselle LaVigne. Why did she use PGM marker testing at Cannon, but used ABO grouping at Bennett? Because the issue was skirted over at trial, the prosecution’s evidence was never challenged. LaVigne was never asked whether the blood at both crime scenes could have come from the same source. Neither appeared to come from Ramirez but the jury was left bewildered. The following is a declaration from confused juror Martha Salcido: Document 20.8 (Exhibit 129).

“As jurors, we wanted physical evidence and only the shoe prints and the one handprint on the window [at the Vincow scene] provided what we needed. I recall some confusion over something like blood stains.”

_{– Declaration of Martha Salcido, Document 20.8 (Exhibit 29)}

Ramirez’s father, Julián Tapia Ramirez, was also aware of the blood evidence that could have exonerated his son. He was interviewed in the El Paso Times.

“The father also said he believes key evidence was ignored by prosecutors. He cited a blood sample found at one of the crime scenes that “was compared to Richie’s and it didn’t match. Whose blood was it?” Ramirez also said a distinctive bloody tennis shoe print found at the murder sites could not be linked to his son. [the print was made in blood at both Cannon and Bennett] “They [prosecutors] never proved it was Ricardo’s shoe,” he said.

_{– El Paso Times, 22nd September 1989}

Ramirez was proven not to be the source of mystery blood at two crime scenes, but his defence was so incompetent that the jury was confused and one blood sample was ignored entirely. The Bennett blood sample was also not discussed in the automatic direct appeal. It is a wonder that Ramirez’s federal habeas lawyers even knew about it.

Hair

The same thing happened with hair. At five Night Stalker crime scenes, head hair was found: Bell and Lang, Cannon, Bennett, Nelson and Kneiding. The hairs at Bennett and Kneiding had come from the victims apart from a shirt found on a shirt at a construction site that was dissimilar to Ramirez’s. At Bell and Lang, Cannon and Nelson, hairs were inconsistent with their own, but matched each other in colour.

In the 2008 Habeas Corpus appeal, this hair is described as light brown or medium brown. While hair testing methods were somewhat primitive back then and no longer used, the hair was obviously different to Ramirez’s in colour, length and texture. At the preliminary hearing, the serologist, Melvin Kong, also said these hairs were blonde. This might suggest they were an in-between colour: a mousey sort of brown. Kong revealed that the hairs at each crime scene were not tested for similarities to each other. They were only tested for similarity to Richard Ramirez, which of course was negative.

Why were they not compared? Is it because the police had told Kong they were only looking for a dark curly-haired killer? Why were the hairs called blonde at the preliminary hearing, but light brown or medium brown at the trial? Either way, it is madness that both blood and hair from crime scenes were not tested against each other and only compared with target suspect Richard Ramirez.

Pubic or transitional hairs (between chest and pubic hair) were found at several crime scenes: Bell and Lang, Bennett, Kneiding and Abowath. They varied with one another and were inconclusive.

Semen

Ramirez was convicted of four rape attacks. Only one rape yielded semen evidence: the Abowath attack. This was not Ramirez’s semen. Although it did not go to trial, was this semen ever compared to samples from the Carns and Erickson attack? Nothing was mentioned at the preliminary hearing. Perhaps the prosecution did not have the evidence. There was also semen found at the Pan case. Pan occurred nine days after Abowath, but in his book, Inspector Frank Falzon said the semen was untestable because DNA testing was not widespread – although it absolutely was used to convict in the 1980s. But what about PGM testing or ABO blood grouping? Why is there no mention of the semen matching? Because Pan did not go to trial, it must also remain a mystery.

“Strategy”

Some of this evidence should not have made it past the preliminary hearing, if only Ramirez’s attorneys had bothered to check the strength of the prosecutor’s evidence. They made no effort to defend the blood at the hearings, citing “strategy” and waited until the trial – which they kept trying to stall. Arturo and Daniel Hernandez only found out the prosecution’s case was weak and that Ramirez was defendable in 1987 – 18 months after the preliminary hearing. It dawned on them that they had no money to retain forensic specialists to argue the case for Ramirez’s innocence.

“The case originally seemed something that was totally indefensible….[now] we find the case has turned out to be very defensible … the monies we’ve agreed to with the family are totally inadequate to defend the case.”

_{– Arturo Hernandez, Petition, pp. 230-231.}

Instead of conceding that they were ill-equipped to save him from multiple death penalties, his lawyers held onto the case, unsuccessfully begging the court to pay them. As a result, Ramirez spent four years in L.A. County Jail before the serial killings went to trial and in the meantime, the media allowed the public to believe there was no doubt he had committed the crimes, when the serologists knew otherwise.

This could have been worked out just 6 months after Ramirez’s capture and the murder investigations would have had to continue. Whoever had light brown hair and Type A blood was probably still out there and maybe went on to kill again somewhere else. We have no way of knowing whether Ramirez had something to do with the killings (perhaps as an accomplice or a runner for stolen property) but we do know this is reasonable doubt. Surely if the defence had been competent, the jury would not have been so confused and returned a verdict of not guilty?

-VenningB-

15th June 2024