Innocence On Trial

by Rick Bowers

  Laura called up a new set of the images. This time, the crime lab photos detailed the actual tires on Nash’s truck. Those photos were taken the day after his arrest. Four separate images of the tires on his Chevy Silverado, taken from distinct angles, each capturing the tread pattern of the individual tire. She zoomed in on each one.

  Holy…! Now, that is amazing.

  Nash’s ‘96 Chevy Silverado had four different brands of tires mounted on the axles. One Goodyear 1500, one Michelin Defender, one Goodrich BF, and one Cooper Cobra 275. All those tires worked fine on that model of truck. They also all left very different tread patterns. The tread on each tire was worn, suggesting that each had been in use for some time.

  The implications raced through her mind. So, the imprints from the crime scene captured four matching track imprints from four matching Goodyear 1500s. Meaning, the truck at the scene was equipped with four standard tires. Meanwhile, Nash’s Silverado had four different tire brands with four distinct tread patterns. His truck would have left four distinct tracks in its wake. The prosecution must have hid this fact from the jury. This was evidence that Eddie’s Silverado did not leave those tracks at the crime scene.

  45

  THE INNOCENCE ALLIANCE

  EXONERATION BLOG

  BREAKING NEWS:

  The opening of the new trial in the case of State of New York v. Edward Thomas Nash is set for Oct. 27 at the Erie County Courthouse in upstate New York. Since the defendant’s request for a change of venue has been denied, the trial will be held in the same courtroom as the original high-profile, media-saturated proceeding. The first trial resulted in the original guilty finding more than ten years ago. However, a different defense attorney, lead prosecutor, and judge may quell the circus-like atmosphere that prevailed at the time. The order for the new trial was won by the Council Against Wrongful Convictions, which has formed an elite team of attorneys and investigators to advance this case, hoping to add it to its impressive record of exonerations.

  REMINDER:

  The Future of Innocence Conference will be held at the Pritzer School of Law on the campus of Northeastern University on Nov. 2. Following the opening day luncheon, Professor Edwin R. Sutton will deliver an address entitled, “The State of the Movement: Exonerating the Innocent or Excusing the Guilty?.”

  46

  THE INNOCENCE ALLIANCE

  EXONERATION BLOG

  BREAKING NEWS:

  Mass. Reverses Drug Convictions

  Thousands of Inmates to Go Free

  Massachusetts Attorney General Reginald Bartholomew announced today that the state will dismiss more than 21,000 drug convictions and charges in light of the revelation that a former state medical examiner falsified evidence against thousands of criminal defendants.

  The tainted drug convictions were linked to a disgraced state chemist, who admitted to faking test results to incriminate defendants and forging coworkers’ signatures on faked evidence reports.

  It’s the largest single dismissal of convictions in U.S. history, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

  Forensic chemist Jeanie Marie Stratford worked as a consulting medical examiner at the Hinton State Laboratory Institute outside Boston for nine years. Stratford tested drug evidence for state prosecutors to use in criminal trials. Stratford admitted to faking thousands of tests to prove that she was the most prolific chemist in the lab. She reported testing more than 500 samples a month, compared with 150 for a typical chemist. Her colleagues called her “Superwoman.” She is now serving a five-year sentence for falsifying records.

  As the scandal has unfolded, hundreds of people have been released from prison, and hundreds more will have their charges dismissed.

  REMINDER:

  The Exoneration Alliance workshop, “Combating Tainted Evidence in Criminal Court Proceedings,” will be held Sept. 14 at NYU Law School. The workshop will show how doctored, mishandled, or inadequate test results lead to thousands of invalid guilty verdicts each year.

  47

  Laura gazed into the plasma monitor. She entered a series of commands, and the screen lit up with the words, “National Incident-Based Crime Reporting System.” Then, the screen resolved into lurid crime scene photos of female attack victims with corresponding names and dates. Laura began combing the state and FBI criminal databases for murders involving female sex workers. She set her search for a seven-hundred-and-fifty-mile radius of the Eden crime scene in a three-year period after the imprisonment of her client. She was looking for attacks on women in the sex trade after Nash was locked up.

  She ran through crimes of passion between husbands and wives, and boyfriends and girlfriends. She dismissed a justifiable homicide case in which a woman killed her abusive partner. In the end, Laura narrowed the results to three homicides in the western New York region.

  One: Wayne, New York. A twenty-two-year-old prostitute was beaten with a blunt object and strangled to death in a hotel parking lot. She was found sprawled on the asphalt in a pool of her own blood, dumped outside her own car. Case still open.

  Laura grimaced and waited for more.

  Two: Lockport, New York. A twenty-year-old stripper was found dead with a plastic bag over her head on a secluded dirt road, four miles from the club where she worked. Case still open.

  Three: Yates, New York. The thirty-six-year-old female proprietor of The Adam & Eve Gentleman’s Club was beaten to death with a lead pipe. Her battered body was dumped in a swampy marsh adjacent to the club. Case open.

  Laura studied the screen, focusing on the names of the victims and dates of the homicides. Someone was murdering female sex workers in upstate New York, while Nash was locked in a cage. The police had made their case against Nash and never bothered to pursue the possibility of a serial killer, a cold-blooded murderer with an eye for strippers and hookers. Pursuing a serial killer would have complicated their narrative, though, so the cops would argue that these were random, unconnected murders. None of these killings proved that the Hangman of Eden was still out there. But, then again, maybe he was.

  “What am I missing?”

  Exhausted, Laura opened an email and started typing:

  From: Laura Tobias

  To: Delilah Cole

  Subject: Incident Search

  Message: Check Suicides.

  ***

  Delilah sat at her computer two days later. She focused on her search, while under her desk, she tapped her pink loafers with ornate lettering on them—one read, Ciao, and the other read, Bella. Delilah wore a gray, lace-up hoodie, and a black gothic skirt with a ruffled, steampunk-style hem.

  “I widened the search to include suicides,” Delilah told Laura, looking over her shoulder. “I spent last night scouring police files for reports of hanging suicides that might have been murder.”

  “And?” A chill ran down Laura’s spine, settling in her bones.

  “I found a case. Susan Carlson, aka Heather Night. Twenty-nine. High-end escort. Lived in a swanky apartment in downtown Rochester. Worked for an exclusive service that catered to corporate executives on business trips.”

  “Okay.”

  “Heather spent a lot time entertaining out-of-town guests at the Plaza Suites or the Grand Marquee… until the police found her in a black negligee, hanging from a rope looped over a reinforced steel shower curtain rod.”

  “When?”

  “January 2010.”

  “After Nash went to prison.”

  “Yep.”

  “Ruled a suicide?”

  “At first. At first glance, it looked like she’d hanged herself.”

  “What about at second glance?”

  “The cause of death was changed to ‘suspicious’ after the police found a partial sneaker print on the toilet seat. The barefoot woman didn’t hang herself. The killer wore sneakers, stood on the lid, and hoisted her up
. He also used a three-quarter-inch climbing rope with thirteen loops.”

  Laura shook her head. Oh, my God. The ramifications raced through her mind like a horror flick on fast-forward.

  Three-quarter-inch climbing rope. A call girl.

  “This means that a homicidal hangman was stringing up female sex workers within a three-hundred-mile radius of the original crime scene after Eddie Nash went to prison. It also means the Hangman of Eden may have killed again.”

  48

  Laura and Charles boarded the 6 AM United Airlines flight to Buffalo. By eight, the innocence attorney and exoneration investigator had rented a four-wheel-drive SUV and set out for their destination. By ten, the SUV was rolling down the gravel road that led to the bridge where Erin Lambert died.

  “The West End Pedestrian Bridge,” Charles said. “Right on the boarder of Eden and Genesee.”

  Laura and Charles lugged their gear three-quarters of the way down the concrete bridge walk and set up at the scene of the hanging that had terrified the community a decade before. Charles snapped open the lid of a large, metal trunk that would serve as a portable crime lab. Laura opened a folder and began flipping through police crime scene maps and diagrams obtained through discovery.

  Charles pulled a long strand of rope from the case and turned to Laura. “This is the same kind of rope used in the murder. Three-quarter-inch climbing rope, meant to scale rock faces and traverse canyon walls. Same diameter. Same length. Same fiber core.”

  “It looks thin,” Laura said. “Must be strong.”

  “Make no mistake.” Charles flexed his arms in the loose sleeves of his dashiki. “This was the rope of an expert hangman. It had the ideal strength, resiliency, and flexibility for this particular job.”

  “Let me get this straight: The killer made a conscious and calculated choice to use that particular rope?”

  “Yes, no doubt about it. To select it, the killer had to make a precise calculation. He had to factor in the density of the twisted core fiber, the torque resistance, the height and weight of the victim, the speed of the fall, and the length of the drop. This rope was the perfect selection.”

  “How so?”

  “It was strong enough to support a five-foot-four, one hundred-and-five-pound body through a sixteen-foot fall at a ninety-degree drop. It was flexible, too. Easy to use. Plus, he could have purchased it at any outdoor store.”

  “You know your rope. You know your hangings.”

  “Hanging murders are few and far between, but I’ve worked one or two in my day.”

  Laura looked over the concrete barrier at the rushing water below. “Why hang her in the first place?”

  Using his right index finger, Charles tracked the direction of the rope fiber. “What does the rope tell you about the killer?”

  “You’re the expert. You tell me.”

  “He had to know the fall would produce more than twelve-hundred foot-pounds of torque on the neck at the break of the fall. The mathematical precision suggests that our killer has a calculating mind. I’ve seen cases where would-be killers use the wrong rope, which then breaks, and the victim lives.”

  “Doesn’t sound like Eddie Nash.” Laura narrowed her focus on the rope. “I doubt if he ever took algebra.” She stepped back from the barrier. “What about the knot?”

  ***

  Charles looked out over the river, as a long-buried memory hit him like a clean kidney punch. A teenaged boy. An African-American kid. Hanging from a swing set. Other kids gathering around, shouting, “No! No! No!”

  He shook off the image and regained his composure. “Where was I? Our killer tied the classic hangman’s noose.” Charles began looping the rope around itself. “The rope was coiled thirteen times above the knot. Thirteen coils for a very unlucky person. Thirteen coils made by the skilled executioner for the doomed prisoner. The traditional knot used in public executions two centuries ago used thirteen coils. The killer knew this.”

  “Jesus.” Laura cringed. “This monster knew just what he was doing.”

  “Laura, this was ritualistic. The killer might be fixated on the fine points of execution and very adept with death by hanging. He went to great lengths—no pun intended—to do this deed. This was an execution.”

  Laura squinted in the morning sun. “No rope was found at Nash’s apartment. No rope was found in his truck, and none at his mother’s place. There weren’t any residual rope burns on his hands. Plus, a calculating, mathematical mind? Ritualistic reenactment? That’s not our client. That’s not Eddie Nash.”

  “Check this out.” Charles reached into his case and withdrew a crime scene photo. “I warn you—this one is rough.”

  Laura scanned the photo of Erin Lambert, suspended in mid-air. Her eyes were closed, her mouth agape, and her head crooked to the right. The rope ran from her neck in a straight line back up to the bridge.

  “The length of the drop is critical in hanging deaths,” Charles said. “Any drop lower than four feet is classified as a short drop. Any drop beyond four feet is classified as a long drop. This was a very long drop. Before the length of rope ran out, the body bounced, and the noose tightened. With such a long drop, death was immediate.”

  “Maybe that was a blessing.”

  “It was. The fall fractured her cervical vertebra—meaning, it snapped her neck. Had it been a short drop, the impact would not have broken her neck—it would have caused gradual asphyxiation. In other words, she would have strangled to death. It would have been long, slow, and painful. At least this way was quick.” Charles bent down and pointed to a short length of steel pipe, protruding from the concrete. “The killer tied the end of the rope to this rebar to anchor it.” Charles took two steps to his left. “The hangman stood at this spot when he pushed the body over the edge.” He tapped the flat surface of the barrier. “He supposedly stood here when he drank his beer and urinated on the suspended body.”

  Laura shook her head in disbelief. “The police found urine on the victim’s body that tested positive for Nash’s DNA. But, who urinates on a body, knowing it will leave incriminating evidence? Who leaves two empty beer bottles with their DNA at the crime scene?”

  “It doesn’t fit this killer’s MO. The person who took such careful steps to plan and carry out this crime would not leave evidence behind in plain sight. Unless he left it there to incriminate someone else.”

  Laura considered the point. Feeling the wind from the river, she could hear the words of the prosecutor in the original trial circling in her head like vultures: “This monster stood on that bridge and looked down at the corpse. He sipped a beer as the victim’s dead body swung in the breeze. Once he finished his celebratory brew, this monster stood on that ledge and urinated down on the swinging corpse.”

  She cringed with disgust. The Big Lie. Works every time.

  “This is interesting.” Laura stared at the enhanced photo that Charles had given her. “It’s not a police photo.” She pointed to a stamp on the white border of the picture. “Property of The Eden Herald.”

  “The newspaper photographer beat the cops here and snapped a shot of the undisturbed crime scene,” Charles explained. “It got added to the police file as evidence.”

  Laura studied the details in the image—the gravel walkway, concrete barrier, and dirt road at the far end of the bridge. She squinted narrowly, searching for that one inconsistency that would point to the lie in the prosecutor’s case. “What’s that?” Laura held up the photo and pointed to a white speck in the upper-left-hand corner. “That white mark on the dirt road. Where the killer would have parked. What do you think it is?”

  Charles leaned toward the image. “Not sure. There’s no mention of anything like that in the crime scene reports.”

  ***

  Charles pulled out his phone and called Delilah back in the case room. “Delilah. Bring up police crime scene photo
#124.”

  A pause. “Done.”

  “Now, isolate the white mark in the area of the dirt road.”

  Fingers tapped a keyboard before Delilah replied, “Got it. I’m sending the concentrated images to your tablet. You should get a high-resolution copy.”

  The enhanced picture resolved on his screen. The white mark filled the tablet screen. Laura and Charles studied it with disbelief.

  “Holy—” Laura gasped. “What in the world?”

  “It looks like a white rag,” Charles said. “Maybe a white towel.”

  “Are those…?” Laura asked, peering closer at the enhanced image. “Could those be…?”

  “Looks like it,” Charles said. “Bloodstains.”

  49

  Laura and Charles were finishing up the walkthrough of the ten-year-old crime scene. The two stood on river stones under the bridge, close to the spot where the victim’s body was retrieved.

  “No white towel was ever logged into the police evidence locker.” Laura recalled a detailed collection list she’d studied in the file. “No white towel was ever presented in court.”

  “What happened to that towel?” Charles wondered aloud. “The cops had to find it at the crime scene.”

  “The question is,” Laura said, “what did they do with it? What does it mean?”

  “It could be just an old, mud-stained rag that’d been lying around the site for days before the killing,” Charles speculated. “Just a piece of litter that has nothing to do with our case.”

  “Unlikely,” Laura replied. “Or?”

  “It could be a towel the killer used to wipe blood from the victim. After all, he beat her with a tire iron before hanging her. Maybe he wiped her down before he strung her up.”