There was a statement from the driver of the Ford pickup, a John Woodrow, who’d hit Child at the intersection. He’d seen the gun on the passenger seat, backed away, and called the cops. Then there was a statement from the crime scene investigator—Rudy Noble—and his take on the murder scene. According to Rudy, the victim was shot once in the back, paralyzing her. She fell forward onto her face. The shot that broke the window in Child’s apartment and alerted his neighbor Gershbaum was probably fired at the victim as she fell. The CSI supposed that the shot passed through her and took out the window, and the bullet made its way over the balcony into the great blue yonder, never to be recovered. Given the victim’s extensive head injuries and the damage to the floor beneath her head, CSI Noble stated that the remainder of the clip had been fired into her skull, that the killer reloaded and then shot the entire second clip into the back of her head, but in reality, most of the bullets were no longer hitting bone or flesh but going straight through into the floor. Given the relationship between the suspect and the deceased and the manner of her death, Rudy Noble proffered the theory that the overkill was a classic indication of a crime committed by a crazed spouse or partner—in this case, David Child. Appended to Noble’s report was a scale map of the apartment; a small, shakily drawn figure denoted the body of the victim, found in the kitchen.
Homicide Detective Andy Morgan had made several statements, most of which concerned establishing the chain of custody when he’d taken copies of the CCTV footage from Central Park Eleven and from the traffic camera at the Department of Transportation. The detective’s main statement concerned his discovery that Child, who lived at the address where Clara Reece’s body had been found, was involved in a traffic collision minutes after the body was discovered by the building’s security guards.
He went on to say that he’d ordered GSR testing on Child and his clothes and had the tests carried out by an independent GSR expert, to ensure there was no possibility of the samples taken from Child’s skin and clothes becoming contaminated. The expert that Morgan had chosen proved to be an interesting angle.
Dr. Henry Porter had once been employed by the state’s forensic department, but now he was an independent expert. Dr. Porter was pretty much unshakable on the stand—a real hard case. None of Porter’s testimony had ever been successfully challenged before. He was well known in defense counsel circles as an ironclad expert witness. So when the cops caught the whiff of a high-profile shooting—one that would certainly catch headlines—they consulted the DA and brought in the supposedly independent Dr. Porter to boost their case.
Porter’s report confirmed the wide presence of highly concentrated gunshot residue on Child’s face, hands, arms, and upper body. When somebody pulls the trigger, the little explosion that results from contact between the firing pin and the primer sends a small cloud of gas around the weapon and the bullet. This cloud contains minute particles, like shrapnel, some of which fuse together from the heat. This is gunshot residue. Some of the material can be found on the victim, or on the weapon or the shooter. Experts look for lead, barium, and antimony, or burned combinations of these, which come from the explosion, or fragments from the cartridge or sometimes even the gun itself. The sheer amount of GSR would, in Porter’s opinion, be consistent with Child having discharged a firearm on multiple occasions. In the appendices to the report were the graphs showing the concentrations of material found in each sample. The samples from David’s skin and clothes looked pretty much the same, but the graph depicting the results of the sample taken from the gun were slightly different; the GSR wasn’t as concentrated. When you consider that the material disperses widely from the gun itself, it’s easy to see why that might be the case. However, there were other differences. Lead deposits, one of the key indicators of GSR, were found on the gun, but none were found in the results from David’s samples. In addition, some of the other non-GSR material found in the samples from David differed from the gun results. Again, not that big a deal. The main problem was that if David was telling the truth, then he shouldn’t have had any GSR on him at all.
Porter also offered the theory that the large particles of burned rubber and nylon found in the samples from David could mean that he wore gloves. Some part of that theory jarred a little with me. Felt like the prosecution told Porter to include this in his findings so that they could argue that the lack of fingerprints on the gun recovered from David’s car could be explained by the fact that he’d worn gloves.
I remembered that Detective Morgan had asked Child on no less than six occasions if he’d ever owned or fired or been around someone when they were firing a gun. Child said he’d never owned a gun, held a gun, or been around when a gun was fired. Porter’s GSR report seemed to give lie to that statement.
The combination of Child’s interview answers and Morgan’s report pretty much nailed him. When this was coupled with the security footage of Child entering the apartment, then leaving, just before Gershbaum heard the shots and then saw the window blowing out—well, that would be all she wrote.
I thought about Porter’s report. The subtle differences in the test results, between the GSR on David and the GSR on the gun, intrigued me. Often the key to blowing open a case lay in the small details, in the finest of inconsistencies. I just had to figure it out.