Murder on Birchleaf Drive

by Steven B Epstein

  “A hair that can’t be identified, correct?”

  Again, the agent agreed.

  “And then on the toe of his sneaker, you found DNA from someone that can’t be matched, correct?”

  Once again, she agreed.

  • • • • •

  The State wasn’t content to rely solely on the SBI crime lab to analyze the DNA evidence. In late March 2011—two months before the trial began—the prosecutors engaged the private medical laboratory, LabCorp, to perform additional analysis. Shawn Weiss, associate technical director of LabCorp’s forensic identity department, was called to testify about the lab’s analysis and findings.

  The SBI crime lab had provided LabCorp with “extract tubes” containing DNA material from the landscaping rock found outside the emergency exit door at the Hampton Inn as well as from possible prints found on the sheetrock next to Jason’s closet door, the jewelry box, and a sprinkler water pipe near the hotel’s western stairwell security camera. LabCorp also received blood samples for Jason and Michelle from which to create its own DNA profiles.

  Weiss testified LabCorp was able to obtain only a partial DNA profile of the genetic material found on the rock. Even though it was only a partial profile, he told the jury, “We cannot exclude Jason Young as the source of that DNA.” Jason also couldn’t be excluded as the source of the DNA material on the sheetrock next to his closet, he testified.

  As for the DNA material from the top of the jewelry box, Weiss testified both Jason and Michelle could be excluded. That DNA profile, he explained, was consistent with a mixture from more than one person. Similarly, Jason and Michelle were both excluded as the source of the DNA material from the water pipe at the Hampton Inn.

  Klinkosum was able to get the LabCorp witness to concede, during cross-examination, that one out of every 79 Caucasians possesses the same DNA markers found in the swabbing of the landscaping rock. Weiss elaborated that if a stadium were filled with 200 people, “you could have two or more individuals that could have the same partial profile that was obtained.”

  The DNA extracted from the swabbing of the sheetrock in the master bedroom, however, was very different. Only one in greater than 6.8 billion people on earth, he testified, would have matched that profile.

  “Given the size of that number,” Weiss quipped, “unless Jason has an identical twin, I would not expect another person to have that profile.”

  • • • • •

  Agent Andy Parker from the CCBI took the witness stand next. He specialized in footwear impressions and fingerprints. As to the former, he testified that, early on, a positive identification was made on one of the bloody footwear impressions on the embroidered pillow—it belonged to a cross-trainer type shoe manufactured by Air Fit, which was sold by Family Dollar Stores. It appeared to be a size 10. Agent Parker was unable, however, to determine the identity of the shoe that made the second footwear impression.

  A total of 151 latent fingerprints had been collected at the crime scene, he testified. Michelle accounted for 19 of those fingerprints and Jason 21. Two prints belonging to Meredith were collected from the door handle on the outside of the home’s front door. Carol Anne Sowerby’s fingerprints were among those collected, as were Alan Fisher’s, even though he hadn’t been to the house for more than six months prior to Michelle’s death.

  Agent Parker testified a few of the prints collected at the crime scene couldn’t be matched to a known standard—including a set of prints from the master-bedroom door frame and another set from a shoe-shine box in Jason’s closet.

  Holt handed the witness two “lift cards” of fingerprints collected from the interior side of Jason’s closet door. He told the jury one print belonged to Jason’s right thumb and the other belonged to his right index finger.

  The prosecutor then asked about a series of prints found just to the left of Jason’s closet door molding.

  “In a nutshell,” the fingerprint expert testified, “I couldn’t identify these as Jason Young, but I could not eliminate him as the potential source to those items.”

  Holt asked whether any fingerprints or handprints were made in blood. Agent Parker responded none were.

  During Collins’ cross-examination, Agent Parker explained only 16 of the 151 latent prints collected “were of value.” The prints were compared to 161 people who were known to have been in the house, including the investigators who processed the crime scene. Significantly, one of the prints that couldn’t be matched with any of the 161 known standards was from the medicine cup that sat on top of the Tylenol bottle found in the hutch in Cassidy’s bedroom.

  • • • • •

  With all of that tedious, forensic testimony out of the way, the stage was now set for the most important crime scene evidence of all—the second bloody shoe impression. Saacks called Michael Smith to the stand. Smith worked at the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia, and specialized in footwear impression evidence. He testified that in December 2007, he received a call from SBI Special Agent Karen Morrow, who was looking for help identifying a footwear impression. She emailed him a photo of the impression that had stymied her.

  Agent Smith testified the FBI lab maintained an extensive database of outsole designs, each of which captured all of the design elements from the bottom of a particular shoe. He studied the image Agent Morrow sent him and queried the database to find any shoes with similar design elements. He hit on a match quickly. The FBI’s footwear expert recalled calling Agent Morrow and telling her, “Karen, I have your shoe.” The outsole design that matched her image was a Hush Puppies Sealy.

  With Judge Stephens’ permission, Agent Smith stepped down from the witness stand and compared the Hush Puppies Sealy image from the FBI database with Agent Morrow’s image, showing the jury the heart-shaped design elements that ran down the middle of both.

  Agent Morrow took the witness stand next. She testified she had received the pillows and pillowcases from the crime scene. She used various chemical solutions to enhance the footwear impressions, which she then photographed. She ran those photos through two different databases, but couldn’t find a match. At that point, she contacted Agent Smith and asked him to run one of her enhanced images through the FBI’s footwear database. About six weeks later—in late January 2008—he called to inform her he had found a match.

  The FBI agent then connected Agent Morrow with a Hush Puppies product specialist in Michigan, Tom Riha. Agent Morrow provided Riha the same image. Riha confirmed it appeared to be a Hush Puppies outsole design—either a Sealy or a Belleville brand shoe. He also told her both shoes had been discontinued.

  Not long after that, Agent Morrow learned that SBI field agents had confirmed that Jason owned a pair of Hush Puppies Orbital brand shoes, size 12. Riha confirmed the Orbital had the same outsole design as the Sealy and the Belleville. That style, however, had also been discontinued.

  But Riha told Morrow the factory in China still had the original molds for the Orbital shoes and offered to have a pair made for her. The following month, a brand-new pair of size 12 Hush Puppies Orbitals appeared on Agent Morrow’s desk.

  Holt handed the witness a large box, State’s Exhibit 84, and asked her if she recognized it. Agent Morrow testified the box contained the Hush Puppies Orbital shoes she received from China. She then cut the box open and pulled out the black, size 12 loafers.

  She held up the left shoe, with the outsole facing the jury, and pointed out the heart-shaped elements running down the middle of the sole and other bar-shaped elements running along the perimeter. She explained how she used fingerprint powder and an acetate sheet to make a “known standard” of the outsole design of the two shoes.

  Holt next handed the footwear expert an envelope containing the Progress Energy paperwork that had been found on the floor in the Youngs’ master bedroom. The agent testified she was able to identify on the paperwork some of the same design elements from the outsole of the Orbital shoe.

  The Assistant DA then approached the
witness stand with two large brown paper bags. Agent Morrow told the jury that inside each bag was one of the pillows she had analyzed. She testified one of the pillows had shoe impressions from both a right and left Franklin shoe and a right Hush Puppies Orbital shoe. She also testified the Orbital shoes matched several impressions found on the Progress Energy paperwork as well as on the master bedroom’s bedspread.

  Collins handled Agent Morrow’s cross-examination. More than any other prosecution witness, the Public Defender was fully aware her testimony came closest to connecting Jason to the crime scene. To obtain an acquittal, he knew it was imperative for him to sow seeds of doubt about her conclusions.

  He first had her admit that in the typical case, she is provided the actual shoes in question—and makes known standards from those shoes—rather than brand-new, factory-issued shoes.

  By making impressions from the actual shoes in question, Agent Morrow agreed, she could detect and analyze wear and tear, small cuts, pieces of rock, gum, and other items that would permit her “to effect an identification to include that shoe and only that shoe.”

  She conceded because she didn’t have the actual shoes in question in this case, her findings were “only based on the ‘could have been made by’” the Franklin or Orbital shoes.

  “So you’re not trying to tell the jury that there’s a match in this case, are you?” Collins asked.

  “No,” the SBI agent acknowledged. She also conceded she couldn’t conclude the Orbital impressions had been made by a size 12 shoe. All she could determine was the impressions found at the crime scene were the same physical size as the impression created by the Orbital shoes she received from China. She agreed the shoes that left those impressions could have been anywhere from size 11 to size 13.

  Jason’s lawyer next had the footwear expert admit she couldn’t conclude the impressions had been made by an Orbital shoe—as opposed to a Belleville or a Sealy. Recognizing the limitations of the FBI database, she even conceded the impressions could have been made by a different shoe altogether, agreeing, “There could be something else out there. You’re right.”

  Collins ended his questioning by focusing the prosecution witness on her seventh written report, pointing to the last sentence in ten different paragraphs. Incredulously, he stated, “They all say, ‘Due to the limited detail, a more conclusive comparison cannot be made.’ Ten times.”

  “Right,” Agent Morrow responded.

  On redirect examination, Holt asked her witness to clarify what she meant by the phrase “due to the limited detail, a more conclusive comparison cannot be made.”

  Agent Morrow told the jury she always used that exact same language—in every report—if she didn’t have the actual shoe in question from which to make a conclusive match. That phrase, she testified, had no more significance than that.

  • • • • •

  The final area of forensic testimony focused on computers, specifically, the home computer and Jason’s work-issued laptop. First up was Agent Beth Whitney from the CCBI, who examined the home computer. She testified she discovered several phrases had been searched on Yahoo.com, Ask.com, and WebMD.com. They included “anatomy of a knockout,” “head trauma,” “head trauma blackout,” and “head blow knockout.”

  Agent Whitney testified, however, she had no way to determine when the searches were conducted, whether they had been made close in time relative to one another, or who made them. The only time parameter she could provide was the day the computer was placed into service—January 2004.

  Toward the end of her direct examination, Saacks handed Agent Whitney a printout of an email she found in the home computer’s Microsoft Outlook sent folder, dated October 5, 2006. The subject of the email was an upcoming football game tailgate Jason planned to take Cassidy to. In the email, he told Michelle he didn’t want a lecture about weather. He wrote:

  … I have always felt I am extremely cognizant of my daughter’s health in EVERY [sense], even more so than you in most cases. I do not want to hear anything else on the subject, or we will have another disagreement.

  You have trouble lying in the bed you make for yourself. You are the first person to gripe, complain and be very bitter about tailgates … When is the last time you had fun at a tailgate and didn’t complain about me, my actions, your “friends,” their actions, not drinking, the heat, the weather or any other thing you can. Yet ironically, you want to put yourself through all those negative things that you typically bitch about … I just don’t get you. … you can’t have it both ways.

  He ended the email by saying:

  Hopefully you will lighten up at some point in your life, but if not, don’t try to bring me with you for I have no desire for that type of experience.

  Agent Whitney was then shown an email exchange between Jason and Michelle she found in a Yahoo Mail account, dated October 24, 2006. In that email, Jason expressed his fears and threats about Linda intruding on their Thanksgiving and Christmas plans, as well as his mother-in-law’s plans following Rylan’s birth. He also discussed the “drama” Michelle created by telling her mother he put “‘no thought’ into our anniversary, not giving you a card and not getting you anything.”

  He continued:

  In reality, I HANDWROTE you a card, dropped it in the mail on 10/7 as it is postmarked and got you more than $25 worth of Starbucks cards. Have you gone back to your mom and told her all that yet??? All I’ve heard about is how I don’t care b/c I didn’t even get a card or anything for you … heck, I actually did more than you … you wrote “love, michelle” and I actually had a nice hand written note. In reality, does that bother me? NO, but I have to point that out as a defense mechanism since you came on so strong to me in front of your mom. Moral of the story—don’t get so emotional over “spilled milk” and make sure your mom and WHOEVER else gets a picture of the GOOD as well as the bad.

  Saacks asked the CCBI agent if these were the only two emails between Jason and Michelle she had found on the home computer. Agent Whitney responded that there were actually hundreds of emails between the two, including ones that contained expressions of love between them.

  During his cross-examination, Collins had Agent Whitney focus on the times both the laptop and home computers were in use on November 2 and 3. She testified the laptop had “user-generated activity” from 6:49 to 6:52 p.m. on November 2, and then not again until 11:38 p.m. Meanwhile, the home computer had user-generated activity from 5:42 to 5:45 p.m., 6:31 to 7:53 p.m., 10:48 to 10:58 p.m., and at 11:45 p.m. She agreed with Collins the activity at 11:45 p.m. was not initiated by Jason.

  Next to testify was another gentleman named Michael Smith, an investigator with the SBI’s computer crimes unit. He testified he performed a forensic examination of Jason’s work-issued laptop. Among the items he found was the email Jason sent to Genevieve Cargol on September 12, 2006.

  Collins lodged an objection to the introduction of the email, which Judge Stephens promptly overruled. The judge permitted Saacks to publish the email to the jurors, who had been eagerly waiting since Cargol testified to learn what Jason had said to her.

  From the expressions on their faces as they read his email, they appeared to find his words—and confession of love for Cargol—of considerable significance.

  14

  Wrapping Up

  The State called several more witnesses to help connect dots and fill in gaps. Among them was Jennifer Sproles, the Records Manager at Dickenson Community Hospital, who met with Jason in Clintwood, Virginia, the morning of November 3, 2006. She testified her meeting with Jason had been scheduled for 10:00 a.m., but he didn’t arrive until after 10:30 a.m. She told the jury the meeting lasted 30 to 40 minutes.

  When David Saacks asked her how Jason appeared that morning, she initially responded, “He acted just normal.” She then clarified he “might have been just a little bit nervous, but that would just—to me, that was just him wanting to sell the product and demonstrating it to me.”

 
Jason’s leg was either shaking or trembling, Sproles said. She recalled him mentioning he had driven in from Galax that morning. During cross-examination, she agreed Jason had told her he had gotten lost on the way and would have called, but had no cell service, and apologized for being late.

  Paul Matthews was Michelle’s supervisor at Progress Energy. He told the jury she “was an outstanding communicator and a dedicated employee and a high performer.”

  Becky Holt asked him about Michelle’s proposal to go part-time once Rylan was born. Matthews testified he understood Michelle was trying to create a “work/family balance” with the impending arrival of her son, and praised her for being a “very devoted mom” who “loved spending time with Cassidy and her family.” Both he and his department head had approved the proposal.

  The evening before the murder, Matthews told jurors, Michelle worked until about 5:30 p.m. She requested permission to bring home a binder of Progress Energy materials she planned to work on that evening. He knew she had a doctor’s appointment the next morning, but was expecting her in at some point. Sadly, she never arrived.

  The State also presented the testimony of Jason Fitzgerald, who had been Jason’s friend since the two began serving as RAs at University Towers in 1995. Fitzgerald described Jason’s and Michelle’s relationship as “up and down.” Though the couple had “public arguments,” he testified, he and his wife also had “fun times” together with them at football games and other activities.

  Holt had Fitzgerald describe what had happened the Friday morning before Ryan’s and Shelly’s wedding. He told the jury several of the men had driven together from Raleigh that morning to play golf in Winston-Salem.

  They stopped at a gas station in Greensboro to meet up with Jason, who had driven with Michelle to that point. When Jason entered the guys’ car, Fitzgerald testified, “he was upset about the argument that they were having.” Jason told the guys, “He was up to his neck with the relationship” and was “not willing to deal with it anymore.” He understood Jason to be saying he was done with his marriage and his relationship with Michelle.