Murder trial hears from lead investigator

Crime scene investigations in the real world are a far cry from the quick and conclusive investigations so often depicted in popular American TV shows, at least in the case of Gerald Dawson's violent 2004 death.

Crime scene investigations in the real world are a far cry from the quick and conclusive investigations so often depicted in popular American TV shows, at least in the case of Gerald Dawson’s violent 2004 death.

Judge and jurors in Courtroom One of the Whitehorse courthouse heard more than four hours of testimony yesterday and today from Cpl. James Giczi, the primary RCMP investigator on the scene of Dawson’s death.

Giczi is a forensics specialist and a footprint expert with the Whitehorse Mounties. 

Prompted first by questions from Crown counsel David McWhinnie and aided by a book of photographs, Giczi meticulously described the process of going through Dawson’s two-room home, where he was found dead on June 27, 2004, layer by layer.

“It’s sort of ... like an archeological dig,” he explained, saying investigators started at the front door of the house, taking photographs and marking potential pieces of evidence as they went, and moved towards the back room of the building where Dawson’s body lay.

Evidence included a knife block found in the kitchen with one knife missing from it. No matching knife was found in the house, and the remaining knives in the block were not tested for fingerprints or for blood, he told the court. There was what appeared to be blood on the refrigerator, “running towards the floor and pooling.”

He said he also found what appeared to be bloody footprints, made by a stockinged feet, and the dusty imprint of a shoe.

Towels and a sheet stained with what appeared to be blood were strewn around Dawson’s body, and when they were removed, Giczi said he saw “two wounds on his back, but I can’t say that they caused his death.”

The seven men and five women of the jury have not yet heard coroner’s evidence on how and when Dawson died. They have heard that Rodrigue is charged with killing the 64-year-old Whitehorse man “on or around” June 17, 2004. 

Giczi testified he sprayed the footprints with Leucomalachite Green, a chemical used by forensics investigators to detect blood. But it is only a “presumptive test” the court learned, and does not prove that something is blood, only that it contains iron, which the stockinged footprints did. 

Several pieces are still missing from the bloody puzzle, including the lab results from swabs taken at the scene. In his cross-examination of Giczi, defence counsel Richard Fowler asked; “You haven’t read any reports that confirm that it was blood or whose blood it was, correct?”

“Yes,” Giczi answered.

“To your knowledge none of the sheets or towels (found around Dawson’s body) were sent to the lab, is that correct?”

“Yes, m’lord.”

In spite of his expertise, Giczi told the court he could not say in what order the footprints were made. However, he could say for certain that the dusty footprint found in Dawson’s home was a perfect match to a shoe found later in Rodrigue’s apartment, and that the shoe had blood in the inside.

The inside of the shoe was not tested for blood until May 2005, nearly a year after Dawson’s death, according to testimony given by Giczi in another trial and read by Fowler today.

Again and again during this trial, the jury has heard of a “previous proceeding” without being given any details of what it concerned.

Today, Deputy Justice John Vertes reminded the jurors they must not do any of their own investigations and can rely only on the evidence heard during this trial to make their ruling.

Rodrigue stands accused of the second-degree murder of Dawson in June 2004.

She has admitted to killing him, but maintains she did not mean to and therefore will only plead guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter.

In order for the second-degree charge to stick, the Crown must prove she intended to kill Dawson.