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Crime scene technician latest witness to testify
| Monday, Feb 26 2007 11:17 PM
Last Updated: Monday, Feb 26 2007 11:11 PM
Vincent Brothers cried, his face twisted with emotion, Monday as photographs of his wife and daughter, shot to death on a bed, were shown to jurors in the second week of his murder trial.
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Deputy District Attorney Lisa Green went methodically through a video and photos taken just after Brothers' wife, Joanie Harper, their three children, Marshall, Lyndsey and Marques, and his mother-in-law, Earnestine Harper, were found dead in their house in 2003.
Bakersfield police crime scene technician Jeff Cecil testified that detectives asked him to quickly memorize the inside of the house so investigators could search for 6-week-old Marshall, who was not initially found.
Two-year-old Lyndsey Harper was easily seen on a bed beside her mother wearing her blue plaid sundress. These photos brought Brothers to tears. Other photos showed her little feet and toes discolored from decomposition, the prosecutor has said.
Marshall was later found under bedding beside his mother.
Cecil's photos revealed the stuff of daily life -- children's sandals, baby wipes and crayons -- mingled with evidence of the crime -- the upturned purse and unhooked television screen lying on the floor where Joanie Harper and the children were found killed. The prosecution hopes these details will help prove the case.
Green believes Brothers unscrewed the flat-screen television and set it screen-side down on the floor to make the murders look like a botched robbery.
The prosecutor pointed out during her questioning of Cecil that a $100 bill was visible on a nightstand beside the bodies.
Cecil also dusted a butcher block full of knives for fingerprints. No fingerprints were found on the wooden block or the knives, Cecil said.
But Green believes Brothers used a knife from this block to stab his wife in the back after he shot her.
Cecil also seized a bag of latex gloves from Earnestine Harper's bathroom. Green believes Brothers used some of these gloves during the murders. The tip of a latex glove was found in the house with Brothers' DNA on it, Green has said.
Defense attorney Michael Gardina has not yet had an opportunity to question Cecil, but Gardina said the house has little physical evidence that Brothers was in the house where he once lived, let alone committed the murders.
Gardina believes the former vice principal was out of state at the time of the killings.
Brothers has pleaded not guilty.
Today his brother Melvin Brothers is expected to testify.
At times Melvin Brothers has said his brother was in Ohio with him at the time of the killings. At other times he has said he did not see his brother during that crucial time frame when the prosecution believes Vincent Brothers drove across country to kill his family.