1.John Ertl — Direct/Cross/Redirect/Recross
1,460 linesTHE COURT: At this time the Court calls State of Wisconsin vs. Steven Avery, Case No. 05 CF 381. Will the parties state their appearances for the record.
MR. KRATZ: Your Honor, the State once again appears by Calumet County District Attorney Ken Kratz, Assistant Attorney General Tom Fallon and Assistant District Attorney Norm Gahn, appearing as special prosecutors.
MR. BUTING: Good morning, your Honor. Attorney Jerome Buting and Dean Strang appearing with Mr. Steven Avery this morning.
THE COURT: Very well. At this time the State may resume the presentation of its case. Mr. Fallon.
MR. FALLON: Yes, good morning. Thank you.
THE COURT: You may call your first witness.
MR. FALLON: State at this time would call John Ertl.
COURT CLERK: Please raise your right hand.
JOHN ERTL, called as a witness herein, having been first duly sworn, was examined and testified as follows:
COURT CLERK: You may be seated. Please state your name and spell your last name for the record.
JOHN ERTL: My name is John Ertl. Last name is spelled E-r-t-l.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY ATTORNEY FALLON:
MR. FALLON: How are you employed?
JOHN ERTL: I work for the State Crime Laboratory in Madison. I'm a forensic scientist. I work for the DNA Analysis Unit and I also do crime scene evidence location, recovery, and collection.
MR. FALLON: How long have you been employed with the Wisconsin State Crime Lab in Madison?
JOHN ERTL: I began there in January of 2000.
MR. FALLON: Had you had any previous employment as a Crime Lab analyst prior to that?
JOHN ERTL: My first job as a forensic scientist was with the State Crime Laboratory in Milwaukee. I started there in '97. I moved from there, after about a year and a half, to the State Laboratory in Austin, Texas. And then I moved to the Madison Laboratory in 2000.
MR. FALLON: As a DNA analyst, what do you do for them, generally?
JOHN ERTL: I examine evidence collected at crime scenes. And whether we have collected it or the police agency has collected it, it's brought to the laboratory for analysis. So I will look for biological materials and I will attempt to extract DNA from them and type the DNA, get a genetic profile.
Then we take samples from known individuals; it's usually a blood sample or a swab from inside your cheek. Extract the DNA from that; get the genetic profile; match up the profiles, if I can; determine whether or not the DNA from the crime scene item stains is the same as, or different than, the DNA from known individuals.
MR. FALLON: Mr. Ertl, what other roles or duties have you been assigned or volunteered to perform for the Crime Lab?
JOHN ERTL: Well, in addition to my -- my major role as a DNA analyst at the laboratory, we have a volunteer system where we do crime scene -- process crime scenes. So if any agency in the State feels uncomfortable or needs help or assistance that we can offer, whether it's just a phone call, get some advice, or whether we actually go to the scene and help them, we'll go. We'll document the scene, photographs. We'll do sketches. But our main job is to find the evidence and collect it and bring it back to the laboratory.
MR. FALLON: Is there a name for that particular unit or task that you perform?
JOHN ERTL: That's the Field Response Team.
MR. FALLON: How long have you been a member of the Field Response Unit?
JOHN ERTL: About six months after I arrived at the laboratory. So, it was about June of 2000, I began going out with them on field responses. Prior to that, I had also done field response work in the Texas lab.
I began training as a crime scene photographer at the Madison Laboratory and I completed that training in about December of 2000. But during that whole time, since about June of 2000, I have been going out to crime scenes with the Madison teams.
MR. FALLON: Let's talk a little bit about your education, Mr. Ertl. Do you have --I take it you have an undergraduate degree.
JOHN ERTL: Undergraduate degree in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin, Parkside. That's in Kenosha.
MR. FALLON: Do you have any graduate degrees?
JOHN ERTL: Graduate degree from the same institution; that's in molecular biology.
MR. FALLON: All right. When did you receive that degree?
JOHN ERTL: The undergraduate degree, I completed in '84 and the master's degree I completed in '92.
MR. FALLON: Now, generally, again, returning to your work with the Field Response Unit; what kinds of cases does the Field Response Unit become involved in?
JOHN ERTL: Generally, it's any case where the agency is uncomfortable, number one, whether they don't have the experience or whatever. Generally involved in some sort of homicide. Could be bones found in the woods, you know. Might not be a homicide, may be a missing person. Might be an accidental shooting, hunter shooting, that sort of thing. We get involved. But it's at the request of the agency where it's happening and that they would request us to come and help.
MR. FALLON: Well, that was my next question. Generally, then, how does one request the services of the Field Response Unit from the Crime Laboratory?
JOHN ERTL: The agency just calls the laboratory and requests that the Field Response Unit come and help. And that's basically how we get involved.
MR. FALLON: All right. So assuming there is a request and it involves some type of death?
JOHN ERTL: Generally, yes.
MR. FALLON: All right. Are there any other types of cases that the Field Response Unit may become involved in?
JOHN ERTL: I have done several where it was just -- it was a missing persons case, the person had gone missing. And they didn't know whether they were dead or alive, but they had some reason to believe there might be some evidence in a particular place.
And in both of those instances I'm thinking about, one was in Milwaukee and one was in Menasha, they were quite old, the person had gone missing. And then much later, years later even, you know, they get some idea, well, he was in the basement and I saw him shot, somebody telling him this; or the landlord remembers there being blood on the wall when a tenant moved out 25 years prior. So we go and look under the paint, see if we can find any blood.
But, generally, there's a body involved. They know someone has been killed. It's more -- more immediate than a missing person.
MR. FALLON: All right. All right. Mr. Ertl, I would like to direct your attention to Saturday, November 5th, 2005, and ask, how did you become involved in this particular case?
JOHN ERTL: It was a Saturday, so I wasn't at work, but I was on call. So the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department called the laboratory number and our answering service forwarded the call to me. And it was Detective Dave Remiker, asked that --
Well, he explained to me that he had a missing persons case out of Calumet County they were getting involved with, but the vehicle belonging to that person had been located in Manitowoc County. And he would like for the lab to come and look at the area around the vehicle and to recover the vehicle and bring it back to the laboratory.
MR. FALLON: About what time did you receive that call or did you make contact with Detective Remiker?
JOHN ERTL: That was around noon on Saturday.
MR. FALLON: All right. Did you subsequently respond?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. FALLON: About what time did you leave Madison?
JOHN ERTL: It was about 1:15 p.m. I had contacted the photographer to take with me and we have a field response vehicle, looks like a ugly colored yellow ambulance, and we headed for Manitowoc County.
MR. FALLON: Who, if anyone, assisted you in this initial response?
JOHN ERTL: My photographer for that was Guang Zhang?
MR. FALLON: And for the benefit of everyone, could you spell Mr. Guang Zhang's name?
JOHN ERTL: It's G-u-a-n-g Z-h-a-n-g.
MR. FALLON: Thank you. Approximately what time did you arrive at the location?
JOHN ERTL: It was about 4:00 p.m.
MR. FALLON: And who did you meet at that location?
JOHN ERTL: I was looking for a Detective Remiker and that he escorted me to an area near a fire truck where they had a canopy out --
(Court reporter couldn't hear.)
JOHN ERTL: A canopy off the side of a fire truck. And it was a kind of a stormy day and it was windy and loud. And I was introduced to Investigator Mark Wiegert, Calumet County Sheriff's Department; and also, Special Agent Tom Fassbender of the Wisconsin Department of Criminal Investigation. And those two were my main contact people throughout the rest of my involvement at the scene.
MR. FALLON: Did you at all, briefly, meet Detective Remiker?
JOHN ERTL: I believe I did.
MR. FALLON: All right. But your direction came from Investigator Wiegert and Agent Fassbender?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. FALLON: All right. After you checked in with them, what did you do?
JOHN ERTL: They were at the end of the road leading into the salvage yard. And the -- that RAV4 vehicle, the victim's vehicle, had been located maybe a quarter mile into the salvage yard, down an embankment.
And so they got somebody to lead us down to a flattened area that was just in front of a pond and there was a car crusher nearby. But it was quite an open gravelly area and we were able to park there. And then we proceeded on foot.
MR. FALLON: I'm going to stop you right there, if I may, and this might assist. I would like to direct your attention to the screen and show you what has been received as Exhibit 86.
JOHN ERTL: That's an aerial view.
MR. FALLON: All right. I'm going to have my colleague hand you a laser pointer here. And that may be of some assistance to you. And if you could, then, briefly describe, first of all, where the fire truck with the canopy was and then your general direction.
JOHN ERTL: I don't want to get the court reporter. Okay. So, right there is where the fire truck was.
MR. FALLON: Let the record reflect the witness is directing a laser pointer to the lower left hand corner of Exhibit 86.
MR. BUTING: No, objection.
THE COURT: Record will so reflect.
MR. FALLON: Thank you.
MR. FALLON: (By Attorney Fallon)~ And from there, sir, where did you proceed?
JOHN ERTL: Down this road. And this is the flat area where we parked.
MR. FALLON: All right.
MR. FALLON: May the record reflect the witness has directed the laser pointer to the area immediately to the right of the area previously identified as the car crusher.
MR. BUTING: No objection.
THE COURT: The record will reflect that as well.
MR. FALLON: (By Attorney Fallon)~ All right. Now, when you went to that area you described as the flat area, Mr. Ertl, what did you do from there?
JOHN ERTL: We then proceeded on foot down this kind of grassy, overgrown gravel and dirt road. And this is the pond. Goes around the pond and you can sort of see cars lined up along the edge of the road that goes around the pond. Right about there, a little more than half way down to the pond there was a --
MR. FALLON: I'm going to show you a close up there. Just so you know, sir, this exhibit, as previously identified, was taken after the car was removed.
JOHN ERTL: All right.
MR. FALLON: But for purposes of illustrating the area and the path you took, if you would now demonstrate with the pointer what you did?
JOHN ERTL: All right. So this is the flat level area. That's the car crusher. We proceeded down this road to right there.
MR. FALLON: All right. Thank you.
JOHN ERTL: There's a red vehicle and two white vehicles. The RAV4 was a blue vehicle, was parked parallel to the red vehicle. Its nose was facing this direction.
MR. FALLON: And the record should reflect he directly pointed to a westerly direction.
THE COURT: The record will so reflect.
MR. FALLON: (By Attorney Fallon)~ All right. Very well. Thank you, Mr. Ertl. If you would please, then, describe further the line of cars and the particular Toyota RAV4 that you examined or first observed.
JOHN ERTL: Okay. These cars parked along here were kind of older looking, the paint was faded; they looked like they belonged there in the salvage yard. The RAV4 looked a little different, it was shiny. And it had an old Rambler hood leaned up against the back panel. It had a piece of plywood up against the front end, on the side.
It had several tree branches up against the back. Had a cardboard box sitting on the hood. And had quite a large 12 to 15 foot tall tree that kind of looked like it had been ripped out of the ground, still had roots attached, was leaning up against and over the hood. The other vehicles there had been parked there and there were saplings growing up around them. But this one had detached tree limbs and things around it.
The Rambler hood and some fence posts were leaned up against the car. The other cars didn't have that sort of stuff around them; the car was sitting there and there was vegetation growing up around them. So it looked a little odd.
MR. FALLON: All right. And before we go further, tell us about the weather conditions upon your arrival.
JOHN ERTL: When I first got the call at noon, I was informed that the weather was threatening. It was early November. It was kind of cold, but it was rain that we were having. It had rained and they were afraid that it was going to rain on the vehicle. I advised them they should cover it in some way, if they could, because of the rain if there were fingerprints or anything, handprints in the dust on the car, that would get rinsed away by the rain water.
So I believe they had put a tarp over the vehicle when it did begin to rain and they had removed the tarp just as we arrived. It wasn't raining when we arrived, but it was still dark and cloudy. And during my course of my stay there that evening, at times it did. We had an actual thunderstorm. And that flat area, then, I talked about, I can remember stepping out of the van at one point into a puddle. Not just a puddle, but the general area where the water was pretty deep and we had quite a torrent of rain.
MR. FALLON: Let the record reflect the witness put his hands together and gave us an apparent estimate of what looked like about 4 to 6 inches of water?
JOHN ERTL: Two to three.
MR. FALLON: Two to three?
JOHN ERTL: Inches of standing water.
MR. FALLON: Now, as you arrived to examine this vehicle, was it raining at that particular point?
JOHN ERTL: Maybe misting, wasn't really raining.
MR. FALLON: How long before it began to rain, relative to daylight, darkness?
JOHN ERTL: I believe it was just after dark that it really started to pour. The lightening was very dramatic.
MR. FALLON: All right. Now, directing your attention more specifically to the Toyota RAV4, what was the condition of the vehicle itself? Describe it's appearance. In addition to the camouflage materials you already talked about, but what else about the vehicle can you tell us?
JOHN ERTL: Well, it was newer looking. I examined all the items that were around it. The thought there, if somebody put them there, they had to have touched them somehow. You know, the tree branches, there may have been places where something would snag on it, might be some clothing fibers.
If there was any blood involved, there might be bloodstains on them. I looked at them for that sort of material. I didn't find any. The cardboard box and the Rambler hood, I thought, had surfaces that maybe would hold fingerprints if you had touched it with your fingers. It was a smooth enough surface that it would hold a latent print. So I decided to collect those and return those to the laboratory. And we were going to return the RAV4 to the laboratory.
We couldn't get into the vehicle, all the doors were locked. So the extent of my examination of the inside was shining a flashlight through the windows and just looking inside.
MR. FALLON: All right. And how much time did you say you spent looking inside the vehicle with a flashlight?
JOHN ERTL: Oh, there were several of us around the vehicle at that time looking inside. Once all the materials had been removed from around it, that was pretty much the first time anyone could get, you know, close enough to peer inside.
MR. FALLON: All right. Let me ask you then, what were you looking for or attempting to see when you examined inside the vehicle?
JOHN ERTL: Well, it was a missing persons case, so the first thing I wanted to know, was the missing person inside the missing person's car. And I didn't see any evidence of that.
MR. FALLON: All right. Now, before we go any further, I would like to direct your attention to the screen, again, showing you Exhibit 130 and ask, does -- does that scene strike any memories with you?
JOHN ERTL: Yes, that's me standing there, right there. That's the RAV4. And that's a bit of a fence post. That's the Rambler hood. That's a piece of plywood. This is part of the tree that was against the front end. And those are bits of the branches that were against the back end.
MR. FALLON: And who is that in the red coat?
JOHN ERTL: That's Special Agent Tom Fassbender.
MR. FALLON: And what does he have under his arm?
JOHN ERTL: I can't quite make that out, kind of looks like he is holding a tarp?
MR. FALLON: A tarp.
MR. BUTING: What exhibit is that, counsel?
MR. FALLON: 130.
MR. FALLON: (By Attorney Fallon)~ And the gentleman immediately behind Investigator Fassbender is whom?
JOHN ERTL: That's Guang Zhang. That's my photographer.
MR. FALLON: All right. Thank you. The vehicle, you said you saw -- you were looking for evidence of a person; was there anything else you were looking for?
JOHN ERTL: At that point, not really.
MR. FALLON: Could you describe the ease or difficulty it was to see in the vehicle when you were working with the flashlight?
JOHN ERTL: Well, at that point the glass was wet from the rain. There was a lot of glare, so you kind of had to, you know, get the light and not have it bounce right back in your face. You can see the front windows are clear, but the back windows were all tinted, so it was kind of hard to see through that, to see what was in the back end.
MR. FALLON: How many people were flashing flashlights into the back of that car?
JOHN ERTL: I think there were at least two of us, because I was looking through the side and I could see another light moving around inside the vehicle. And there was somebody standing on the opposite side of the car.
MR. FALLON: Now, as you were -- How much time would you say you spent looking into the vehicle?
JOHN ERTL: Oh, probably not more than 5 or 10 minutes.
MR. FALLON: During that time, did you see any evidence of any blood in the vehicle?
JOHN ERTL: No, I didn't.
MR. FALLON: All right. Were there any license plates affixed to the vehicle?
JOHN ERTL: No, the license plates had been removed.
MR. FALLON: Did you notice whether there was any damage to the vehicle at all?
JOHN ERTL: Yes, once we got the debris away from it, there was a scratch behind the Rambler hood. And then this front end had a little bit of collision damage, the lens on the light was cracked or broken and there was some denting to the window.
MR. FALLON: Did you examine the debris that was on the car for the presence of any trace or biological evidence?
JOHN ERTL: Yes, I did.
MR. FALLON: And what did you find?
JOHN ERTL: I didn't see anything that I felt was unusual. I didn't see any bloodstain. I didn't see any hairs affixed to anything. I didn't see any fibers attached to any of it.
MR. FALLON: And for the benefit of all here, could you briefly explain, what do we mean when we use the phrase trace evidence?
JOHN ERTL: Well, trace is a different unit than I worked in. They are pretty all encompassing. Trace gives you the idea that it's just a tiny bit of something.
When any two objects are in contact, a little bit of one transfers to the other. If you back into a car with your car, you may get a little bit of the paint from that car onto your car, and vice versa. That would be trace evidence, scratch the paint off the car and collect that.
If you're wearing clothes and you are handling these tree branches, you may snag your clothes and some of the fibers may get lodged on the tree branch. That would be trace evidence.
Or if one of my hairs comes out, lands on the tree branch, or I get my hair caught in the tree branch and it pulls some of it out, that would be trace evidence.
MR. FALLON: Were any efforts undertaken at that time to process the vehicle?
JOHN ERTL: No.
MR. FALLON: Why not?
JOHN ERTL: No. Well, the weather was threatening and the best thing we could do is protect it from the weather at that point and then to get it back to the laboratory where we could put it in the garage and we would have all the experts in trace evidence and blood collection at the lab to do their jobs.
MR. FALLON: All right. What efforts did you make to protect the integrity of this evidence?
JOHN ERTL: At that point, I suggested that we get it back to the laboratory and that we use a covered trailer to put the vehicle in. The trip to Madison in a rainstorm traveling at highway speeds would pretty much scour anything off the outside of the car. We wanted to put it inside of a trailer, so I asked for that to be brought to the scene.
MR. FALLON: And did that, in fact, occur?
JOHN ERTL: Yes, it did.
MR. FALLON: Approximately how long did you wait before making the request for that type of equipment and its arrival on the scene?
JOHN ERTL: I believe I made that request pretty early on. I'm not exactly sure how long it took to get that to the scene. There was a wrecker truck was called and that was a separate company, I believe, that had the trailer. In the meantime, I got involved with other areas at the salvage yard.
MR. FALLON: All right. Let's talk about those. While you waited for the wrecker service to arrive with the enclosed trailer, what was the first thing that you did after leaving the SUV?
JOHN ERTL: There was a team working with a cadaver dog. And I kind of wanted to get a bigger feel for where I was. So I kind of hooked up with them. We proceeded down the road, around the pond, and then down a steep embankment into, like, a gravel pit.
MR. FALLON: I'm going to direct your attention again to Exhibit 86; does that assist you in explaining what you did?
JOHN ERTL: Sure. The RAV4 was parked here. We walked down this way a ways and then down this embankment into this gravel pit area.
MR. FALLON: How much of a pitch, or a bank, or embankment was that; in other words, what's the difference in the terrain as best you can describe.
JOHN ERTL: Oh, it was kind of loose footing. So it was kind of step and slide to get down. Once we were down, you couldn't see up out the top. It was maybe a 20 foot embankment.
MR. FALLON: All right. Was steep or ...
JOHN ERTL: It was pretty steep, yeah. It took some effort to come back up, too.
MR. FALLON: All right. And after -- So approximately -- At this particular point, was it still daylight or had dark set upon the scene?
JOHN ERTL: It was getting to be twilight. While we were -- While we were down in here, we could still see each other pretty well; and the dog, you could see it working.
We didn't stay down here for a real long time. I came back up, met back up with my photographer. And then, I believe, we proceeded back to our van. And then, at some point we were escorted back up to the command base.
MR. FALLON: Where was your van parked?
JOHN ERTL: In this flat area here.
MR. FALLON: Let the record reflect, he's again pointing to the area to the right of the car crusher and somewhat south of that between the crusher and the pond.
THE COURT: The record will so reflect.
MR. FALLON: Thank you.
MR. FALLON: (By Attorney Fallon)~ Then what did you do, sir?
JOHN ERTL: Well, from there we were escorted up to a place where there were four burn barrels behind a residence.
MR. FALLON: All right.
JOHN ERTL: So back up to the command area and then down this road, behind this residence here.
MR. FALLON: I'm going to ask the record reflect that the witness is pointing to the area behind the residence previously identified as the Janda residence.
MR. BUTING: No objection.
THE COURT: Very well, the record will reflect that.
MR. FALLON: All right. And --
JOHN ERTL: Somewhere back here -- And at this point it was completely dark and it was raining.
MR. FALLON: All right. How much rain or how hard was it raining?
JOHN ERTL: At that point, I think it was a pretty steady, moderate rain.
MR. FALLON: What happened at that particular location?
JOHN ERTL: I watched the cadaver dog work around the barrels. And it had interest in the two of them to the south. Then there were two more next to it. I advised, with the rain, you probably want to cover those with a tarp, prevent whatever is inside from getting soaked.
MR. FALLON: All right. What occurred next?
JOHN ERTL: From here, we went back to the command station and we worked inside of a -- one of the large shed garages from the salvage yard. It was a golf cart type vehicle in there and the dogs were working in there and one of them had hit on the back end of that.
MR. FALLON: Could you describe that golf cart for us, please.
JOHN ERTL: It was kind of a cross between an all terrain vehicle and a golf cart; kind of had -- was more truck like than a golf cart. Had a canopy over the top. And sort of like a little pick up truck bed in the back. There were some stains on the back. I tested those for the presence of blood. We have a presumptive test for blood; it doesn't discriminate human from animal. And it's called phenolphthalein.
MR. FALLON: And for the benefit of our reporter here, can you spell phenolphthalein, please.
JOHN ERTL: P-H-E-N-Y-L-T-H-A-L-E-I-N (sic).
(Witness corrected the spelling off the record.)
MR. FALLON: And what result, if any, did that testing yield?
JOHN ERTL: There were a couple of dark colored stains on the back end and up on the canopy. And they all tested negative, indicating it was not blood. We had the photographer with us and he photographed that.
MR. FALLON: And where -- where did you go next?
JOHN ERTL: I'm not sure which of those large service garages it was that we were in, where the golf cart was. At that point I believe we went back down, informed that the wrecker had arrived. And we proceeded back down to the flat area and then back to the RAV4.
MR. FALLON: And prior to stopping at the RAV4, had anything changed in the area, specifically with respect to the car crusher?
JOHN ERTL: At some point, and I'm not sure whether it was while the wrecker -- before the wrecker -- before we arrived at the scene where the wrecker was, or after we had secured the RAV4, but at some point there was talk about a car in the car crusher and how that was quite unusual. The crusher was operated by a different outfit, sort of a portable unit. They bring it into a salvage yard, crush some cars, kind of like a subcontractor, but they operated it.
MR. BUTING: Objection to that; that's beyond the scope of his knowledge.
JOHN ERTL: That was just what I had heard.
MR. BUTING: He's not going to know who operates it.
THE COURT: The objection is sustained.
MR. FALLON: (By Attorney Fallon)~ What -- My point for you, sir, is what did you do when you examined the crusher at this particular point?
JOHN ERTL: There was a car crushed in the crusher. And the ramp of the crusher was still on top of the car, so you could just see the side of a crushed car. And you could sort of see into where the windows had been, but you couldn't see much.
So somebody made contact with the people who knew how to operate the crusher to raise up the ramp so we could get in and look -- try to get a better look at the car that was in the crusher.
MR. FALLON: And did you get a better look?
JOHN ERTL: Yes, at some point people came and started it up and raised the ramp. Then we were able to climb up on top of the car. Still couldn't get a real good look because the roof of the car was down -- crushed down on top of it too. So I advised if you want to get inside, you will have to get the roof and the metal off of there, then you could see what was actually in the car before it was crushed.
MR. FALLON: Showing you on the screen what has been received as Exhibit 66; is that the crusher vehicle that you have been talking about?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. FALLON: And there was a vehicle in that when you arrived?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. FALLON: All right. Returning, again, to the RAV4, the SUV, when the wrecker arrived, what did you do?
JOHN ERTL: The person with the covered trailer, he had attached to a pickup truck, he helped direct the wrecker truck. It was a really large one, looked like you could probably pull a semi.
He backed it down along that road between the row of cars and the pond. I waited for them down at the RAV4. The wrecker operator then examined the vehicle, trying to determine how he was going to best get it of there, because there was no way they were going to get the pickup with the trailer in there and along that narrow road with the pond. So the plan was to pull the RAV4 out into that flat area near the crusher and then put it into the trailer there, where they had room to maneuver.
So the wrecker operator determined that the RAV4 wasn't just going to roll; it was either in gear, or it had a parking break on. For whatever reason, it wouldn't roll on its own wheels. So he wanted to try to put the vehicle in neutral and it was locked; he couldn't get in.
So he crawled underneath and tried to reach the linkage for the transmission; he couldn't reach that. Then he tried to access that from under the hood, but the hood release and everything was also inside. Couldn't pop the hood.
So what he ended up doing was crawling underneath and unbolting one of the drive shafts. It was a four wheel drive vehicle. He unbolted the drive shaft to the front end.
He then used his lifter from the wrecker to pick up the back wheels and then rolled it on the front wheels and he pulled it out from around the pond, into that flattened area where the trailer was waiting. And then he rolled it up into the trailer and then we strapped it down into the trailer.
MR. FALLON: And who was involved in this project?
JOHN ERTL: I was there, the wrecker operator, and the person that brought the trailer.
MR. FALLON: Once the vehicle was secured, what did you do?
JOHN ERTL: We then prepared -- and I'm not sure if this is the point where they actually had the ramp raised now and we then looked at the crushed vehicle in the crusher, or if that had occurred right prior to moving the RAV4 out. But at any point, at some point Tom Fassbender said that we don't need you any more right now, get the RAV4 back to the lab.
MR. FALLON: All right. During your exposure to the SUV, how many law enforcement officers were in the immediate vicinity of that vehicle?
JOHN ERTL: When I first arrived, I would guess three to four. There was always one standing away from it. And the person was there just to make sure that no one who didn't belong there was there. That was like the security guy. When I first arrived, they were removing the tarp; I think there were three or four there. Tom was there with me; my photographer; there was another --
MR. FALLON: You mentioned Tom?
JOHN ERTL: Tom Fassbender.
MR. FALLON: Agent Fassbender who is seated here?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. FALLON: All right.
JOHN ERTL: And I don't know all the people involved.
MR. FALLON: All right. And how about after your tour of the general area. You came back to the area where the SUV was; were there officers, then, present as well?
JOHN ERTL: The one on guard was still there.
MR. FALLON: Same person?
JOHN ERTL: That I don't know.
MR. FALLON: Okay. Approximately what time did you leave the scene that Saturday night?
JOHN ERTL: I believe it was about quarter to nine.
MR. FALLON: What time did you arrive in Madison?
JOHN ERTL: It was about 1:15 a.m.
MR. FALLON: And what time did you finish securing the RAV4?
JOHN ERTL: It was about 2:00 a.m.
MR. FALLON: All right. And where was the vehicle secured?
JOHN ERTL: In the garage at the Crime Laboratory in Madison.
MR. FALLON: Did you need the assistance of any other professional help to secure the vehicle?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. FALLON: Tell us about that?
JOHN ERTL: When we arrived in Madison, I called the local wrecker company to come and do the opposite of what the wrecker had done at the scene in Manitowoc, to lift up the back end, pull the vehicle out of the trailer, and then put it into the garage, because the back wheels were still locked.
MR. FALLON: Directing your attention to Sunday, November 6, were your services again requested in this investigation?
JOHN ERTL: Yes. About 9:00 a.m., Special Agent Tom Fassbender called me and requested that we come up to the salvage yard again. And at that point they hadn't any specific area they wanted our assistance, they just wanted our general assistance to be available in case they came acrossed anything.
MR. FALLON: Okay. Did you then make plans to travel to the salvage yard?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. FALLON: And what time did you, in fact, go to the salvage yard?
JOHN ERTL: We left Madison, I think it was just before noon.
MR. FALLON: And what time did you arrive at the salvage yard?
JOHN ERTL: I believe it was around 3:30.
MR. FALLON: When you arrived at the scene, with whom did you meet?
JOHN ERTL: Investigator Wiegert and Special Agent Fassbender.
MR. FALLON: What assignments were you asked to perform?
JOHN ERTL: Well, we were told of three areas where cadaver dogs had been interested. One of them was on the east side of Avery Road, at the corner with 147; there was a gravel yard, gravel quarry. And there was a maybe 30 foot tall mound of gravel and sand. And about 6 to 8 feet up the pile, the dog got excited about something. They said they would put an orange flag there. And they had seen a pinkish substance. So that was one place.
The dogs were also interested in two wrecked vehicles that were parked on the perimeter of that pond, near where the RAV 4 had been.
And then they talked about the burning barrels that I had seen the night before. The dogs were interested in those. We began working at the gravel yard.
MR. FALLON: All right. And was anything of significance, in your determination, found at that gravel yard location?
JOHN ERTL: We found some reddish staining on some pieces of gravel. They tested presumptive positive for the presence of blood. We located a pinkish substance, perhaps three quarters of an inch in largest dimension, looked like flesh.
We found another piece of material about the same size; it was reddish and white in color. Both of those items also tested presumptive positive for the presence of blood.
We collected those. And then we proceeded to excavate that area under where those materials had been. So we dug 4 to 6 feet of gravel out of that area and placed it on a tarp, shovel by shovel, looking to see if we could find anything more. And we worked until dark; it was about 5:00.
MR. FALLON: And did you find anything else?
JOHN ERTL: We didn't find anything more.
MR. FALLON: Was there any evidence whatsoever that that was any kind of burial site, or any wrongdoing had occurred there?
JOHN ERTL: Other than the presence of possibly blood and some flesh. And at that point we didn't know if it was animal or human. And collected it and didn't find any more. That was the extent of it.
MR. FALLON: And that's because the test does not distinguish between human or animal?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. FALLON: Okay. And after completing that particular task, what was your next assignment or task on the agenda?
JOHN ERTL: At that point we were asked to go in and look at Steven Avery's residence. It had previously been examined by others and things had been taken. So at that point we just went in and we were asked to look for any evidence of blood spatter patterns.
It's one thing to find blood, a blood stain, that can tell you some information. But we were looking more for patterns of bloodstain. If you cut your finger and do this, the blood will come off your finger and leave little specks in a line and you can tell something about how that blood came to be in little specks in a line.
MR. BUTING: Can the record reflect when he said, do this, he was moving his index finger sort of out to the side and kind of flicking it?
MR. FALLON: That's fine.
THE COURT: That's an accurate reflection of the actions he took.
MR. FALLON: (By Attorney Fallon)~ Did you find any evidence of bloodstain pattern?
JOHN ERTL: No, we didn't.
MR. FALLON: Now, what, if anything, did you find in your examination of the residence that Sunday evening?
JOHN ERTL: We found some bloodstains on both entry doors and on the floor of the vanity and in the sink in the bathroom.
MR. FALLON: What equipment were you utilizing as you examined his residence that evening?
JOHN ERTL: We used flashlights with white light and blue light. The blue light helps to give contrast to the blood, makes it turn black so it helps to see blood. And we used white light to see the reddish color of blood.
MR. FALLON: Who was assisting you in this task?
JOHN ERTL: I was with Guang Zhang, the photographer. And also Chuck Cates. When we returned on Sunday, there were three of us.
MR. FALLON: What was the next -- Approximately what time did you wrap up your examination of the defendant's residence?
JOHN ERTL: I believe we were in there until about 5:30.
MR. FALLON: When you start at the residence, was it dark or still light out?
JOHN ERTL: We were losing light. When we left the gravel yard, it was not productive to be looking for things without supplemental lighting. And flashlights and a large gravel pile and shoveling, that wasn't productive anymore. By the time we left the residence, it was completely dark, 5:30.
MR. FALLON: After -- Just so that we're clear, you mentioned Mr. Zhang's name before. Mr. Cates accompanied you on this trip?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. FALLON: Just so that we're clear, who was Mr. Cates again?
JOHN ERTL: He is another member of the field response crew. His normal duties involve fingerprint work. That's his specialty. He was also, at that time, the field response training coordinator.
MR. FALLON: After examining the defendant's residence, what was the next task you performed that Sunday evening?
JOHN ERTL: May I look at my notes to refresh my memory there?
MR. FALLON: If need be, sure.
JOHN ERTL: Okay. After we looked at the residence, then we moved on to the two vehicles that the cadaver dogs were interested in, down near the pond. One of the agencies had set up some very impressive lighting down there, so we were able to examine those vehicles even though it was dark outside.
We found apparent blood staining in both vehicles. We collected those bloodstains. We did not do fingerprint analysis -- or we did not process the vehicles for latent prints at that time because it was starting to form dew on them. And the way we look for fingerprints is to take a fine powder with a feather brush and dust acrossed. And if it's wet, that just does not work. So we just left that for a later time after it dried off again.
MR. FALLON: And these vehicles, what were they?
JOHN ERTL: One was a gold colored Honda and one was a silver colored Renault.
MR. FALLON: Do you know if they had any prominent roll in this case after your examination?
JOHN ERTL: I do not know.
MR. FALLON: Very well. Directing your attention, then, to Monday, November 7th, 2005, did you again participate in processing of the salvage yard?
JOHN ERTL: Arrangements on Sunday evening were that we would meet up with a Jeremy Hawkins here in Chilton at the Calumet County Sheriff's service garage. The four burn barrels had been transported to the service garage and we were to examine those.
MR. FALLON: And did you start examining the burn barrels?
JOHN ERTL: Yes. Approximately 8:00 a.m., we met with Jeremy Hawkins. He let us into the garage, got us into the trailer where the burn barrels were. Got them out into the garage. Set up our sifting equipment and bit by bit went through the contents of the barrels, sifting, looking for any kind of bones, teeth, hair, any metallic type items.
MR. FALLON: Did you find any of that evidence?
JOHN ERTL: There was. In each barrel examined we collected a box full of that sort of material.
MR. FALLON: All right. Now, was that task at all interrupted on Monday?
JOHN ERTL: Yes. Just after we had our lunch break and we had just started sifting the barrels again, around 12:30, we were requested to return to the area near the scene. Some volunteer searchers had discovered in some area -- a forested area with some disturbed soil. They were thinking this could be a potential burial site. So we proceeded to that location. It's just west of the salvage yard, at the end of Kuss road.
MR. FALLON: What did you find when you arrived at that location?
JOHN ERTL: We were taken out into the woods a little bit and was indeed an area with disturbed soil. To me it didn't look like a grave site. It looked more like a rotten stump to me, where the wood had just turned into like humus. There were no plants growing up through it really. So it was a barren spot. So it kind of looked like it was disturbed.
The normal grasses and moss and stuff growing in the area around it weren't here, so it did look odd. There was some whitish colored plastic sticking up out of the ground in sort of a perimeter, maybe 3 feet in diameter. The plastic to me looked like it was decomposing, getting brittle and just flaking off on to the ground, on its own. Those little flakes were still there right under the plastic.
MR. FALLON: What does that signify with respect to the age of that plastic and that particular site?
JOHN ERTL: Well, the fact that little bits were directly below the plastic that was sticking out of the ground indicated to me that it hadn't been disturbed recently and that that plastic had been there for quite some time.
MR. FALLON: Perhaps years?
JOHN ERTL: Perhaps.
MR. FALLON: So your conclusion, with respect to the possibility of any type of burial site, was what?
JOHN ERTL: Well, at that point I was also informed that they had been working a blood hound with a scent from --
MR. BUTING: Objection as to hearsay at this point.
MR. FALLON: That's fine.
MR. FALLON: (By Attorney Fallon)~ Mr. Ertl, just in terms of based on all the knowledge you had available to you, and in particular your examination of this location; what did you conclude regarding the possibility, or no possibility, of a burial site?
JOHN ERTL: My preliminary indication was that this was not a burial site.
MR. FALLON: Approximately how long did your examination of that particular site take?
JOHN ERTL: Well, the first thing, they wanted to get permission from whoever owned that property. They needed to figure out who owned that property. They got written permission from that person. Guang and I, then, went in and photographed the area.
We sent Chuck back, then, to the salvage yard, to do the latent fingerprint processing on the two vehicles from the night before. This is about 3:00 in the afternoon. So it was dry, wasn't raining at that point. So we sent him out to do that.
A warrant was then obtained for the burial area, to search that. And then I began the excavate this humus like material, moving it on to a tarp, digging down. I dug down a little ways and the white plastic perimeter was actually underneath all of that humus material on the flip side of the white plastic, was the label peat moss. It was an old bail of peat moss.
Under that plastic was the remnants of an old wooden pallet that was decomposing into the soil. I picked the pieces of wood out, dug down into the soil a little bit and ran into roots, fine root mat from the surrounding plants was well under the entire peat bag.
And where there were little slits, small perforations in the peat bag, there were little shoots starting to come up through it. So, again, indicating to me that this area had not recently been disturbed.
I then dug down past the roots and looked at the soil layering. It looked like it, again, had not been disturbed. But at that point I concluded this was not a burial site.
MR. FALLON: I'm going to have the screen project Exhibit 84 for us and ask if you recognize that general vicinity, and in particular drawing your attention to the top of the photograph displayed there; does that look familiar to you?
JOHN ERTL: I can't orient to that.
MR. FALLON: Okay.
JOHN ERTL: I know there were some ponds, but I had never gotten to the ponds.
MR. BUTING: I have no objection if counsel points out the locations that you are referring to and see if he can identify it that way.
MR. FALLON: It's not necessary. Thanks for the offer.
MR. BUTING: Okay.
JOHN ERTL: Okay. I see something I recognize.
MR. FALLON: What do you recognize? Take your pointer and tell us what you recognize.
JOHN ERTL: This is the residence of Steven Avery.
MR. FALLON: Right.
JOHN ERTL: This is the garage. And this is the road to the command center. And this is a field. And I didn't walk that field myself, but I was informed somebody had.
MR. BUTING: Objection, hearsay.
JOHN ERTL: Looks like that's the --
THE COURT: Hold on a second.
MR. BUTING: "I was informed", he should avoid that.
JOHN ERTL: Okay.
MR. FALLON: It's just his way of explaining how he got from point A to point B. It's not offered for the truth of the matter. It's just the effect on the listener as he investigated, did his job.
THE COURT: Based on what he said, I can't tell if it's hearsay or not because I don't know the purpose for which it's being offered. So I reserve ruling at this point. Mr. Fallon, you may proceed.
MR. FALLON: (By Attorney Fallon)~ All right. Mr. Ertl, if you would just confine your opinions and -- or your observations to what you saw and what you did. Again, you were explaining your orientation to Exhibit 84.
JOHN ERTL: I had been here, Steven Avery's residence, and I was here, if that is the end of Kuss Road.
MR. FALLON: All right.
JOHN ERTL: I was not in this area here.
MR. FALLON: Okay.
JOHN ERTL: We drove around on the highway to get here.
MR. FALLON: So that the top of the exhibit that you pointed to, the end of Kuss Road, is that where this examination took place, generally?
JOHN ERTL: Yeah. The suspected burial site was in this wooded area just to the left.
MR. FALLON: So the record should reflect that he's directing a laser pointer to the area immediately to the left of the cul-de-sac identified as Kuss Road?
MR. BUTING: No objection.
THE COURT: Record will so reflect.
MR. FALLON: Thank you.
MR. FALLON: (By Attorney Fallon)~ When you finished the examination of that particular area, did you still have daylight or was it dark?
JOHN ERTL: No, it was about 4 -- or 5:45 and it was dark at that point.
MR. FALLON: And when you completed the examination of that area; what did you do?
JOHN ERTL: We went back to the Calumet County Sheriff's Department and continued the sifting of the burn barrels. We worked on that until about 9:30 that night.
MR. FALLON: Okay. And directing your attention, again, then, to Tuesday, November 8, did you resume work with respect to the burn barrels?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. FALLON: What time did you start that day?
JOHN ERTL: 8:00 a.m.
MR. FALLON: All right.
JOHN ERTL: We finished up with the burn barrels about quarter to 11.
MR. FALLON: And how many barrels did you, in fact, examine that day?
JOHN ERTL: Three. There were two from the original four. And then there was a fifth barrel that had been recovered and brought to the garage.
MR. FALLON: Tell us about the fifth barrel, would you please.
JOHN ERTL: We were informed that it had come from --
MR. BUTING: Objection again, hearsay.
MR. FALLON: One second.
MR. FALLON: (By Attorney Fallon)~ Mr. Ertl, all I want you to do is describe the fifth barrel?
JOHN ERTL: Okay.
MR. FALLON: Don't tell us what you know about the barrel, just what you saw and what you did with the barrel. All right.
JOHN ERTL: It looked very much like the first four barrels. It was a steel 55 gallon drum, with the top cut off, apparently to burn things in. The fifth barrel didn't have much in the way of unburned material in it, where as the other ones had.
This one had a car wheel and what looked to be the remnants of a tire; the steel cords wrapped around the wheel on top of the barrel, inside the barrel. We took that out and there was mostly just ash and debris.
We began sifting that and we recovered what looked like electronic components, little circuit boards, a couple of which had the Motorola M emblem on them, that we could see that. And several of those type of things were found in the sifting. There was also what looked like to be remnants of batteries, that sort of thing. We collected all that material.
MR. FALLON: And what did you do with it?
JOHN ERTL: Well, as with all the materials we collected, they were eventually turned over to Calumet County Sheriff's Department.
MR. FALLON: I will have my colleague show you exhibit marked, I believe, 156; do you recognize that?
JOHN ERTL: It looks like the fifth burn barrel, based on the lack of any other materials, besides mostly burnt materials. And you can sort of identify the square corners of what looked like the circuit boards being recovered from there.
MR. FALLON: Okay. I'm showing you the exhibit on the screen right now. In terms of the contents, as you began to sift the barrel; did those contents look very similar to that?
JOHN ERTL: Yeah.
MR. FALLON: And with respect to those contents, can you identify anything in the exhibit that you recognize?
JOHN ERTL: From the photograph, I can't really identify anything they look like.
MR. FALLON: All right.
JOHN ERTL: But they have square corners, but -- like the things we collected out of the barrel.
MR. FALLON: Okay.
JOHN ERTL: The right shape and size.
MR. FALLON: There's another close up there, in terms of this particular photograph. And, again, just for the general idea, is that how the barrel looked when you began the sifting process that you just told us about?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. FALLON: All right. Very well. Thank you. After you finished examining the barrel, the fifth barrel, what did you do next?
JOHN ERTL: We then returned to the salvage yard.
MR. FALLON: What did you do when you returned to the salvage yard?
JOHN ERTL: At that point we were directed to one of the wrecked vehicles in the yard. We were told that one of the searchers had found vehicle license plates within the vehicle. They had taken them out. They had been folded or rolled in such a way that he couldn't read the number on the plate. So he unrolled it or unfolded it and was able to read the plate. And it was the license plate number for the RAV4 vehicle.
MR. FALLON: So what did you and the rest of your team do with respect to the vehicle?
JOHN ERTL: We went over and photographed the position of the vehicle, the surrounding area. We examined the inside of the vehicle, we processed it for latent prints. And we collected the license plates.
MR. FALLON: All right. And what was the next task that you were asked to perform that day?
JOHN ERTL: Well, Guang Zhang and I left that immediate area to take some general overall photographs of the salvage yard, while Chuck was doing the latent print processing on that vehicle. When we arrived back, we were requested -- We had the request for the use of our sifting equipment. There was a burn pit behind the garage that they wanted to use our sifting equipment on.
MR. FALLON: And who was asking for your assistance, and in particular, your sifting equipment?
JOHN ERTL: That was Special Agent Tom Sturdivant.
MR. FALLON: Can you describe this sifting equipment for us?
JOHN ERTL: It's three aluminum poles to hook together to form a tripod, stands about 6 feet tall. There are chains coming down from the center top of the tripod to which we attach an aluminum frame, so it kind of can swing within the tripod. And on that aluminum frame, we can put different size mesh. You put the materials on top of the mesh and you can use a trowel, or a broom, or just shaking, whatever works best for the material.
And then the particles or bits that won't fall through the screen, you can collect and examine. The bits that fell through the screen, we put a tarp under there and saved those for later analysis, if needed.
MR. FALLON: Do you use different types of screens?
JOHN ERTL: In this case, I believe we used two different types of screens.
MR. FALLON: And approximately what time did you begin to assist with the sifting of the material from the burn pit.
JOHN ERTL: That was about 3:00 p.m.
MR. FALLON: All right. And generally, would you describe for us how you worked the particular scene there?
JOHN ERTL: There were -- In addition to Tom Sturdivant there were some other uniformed officers present at the scene. Our team got our sifting equipment, set it up. And I have had some experience with excavating grave sites before so I knew how to dig into the material we wanted to sift without bashing it up and ruining it.
So we have a small square nosed, flat shovel. And the ground under the ash in this area was very hard and packed. And so I moved material onto the shovel, onto the sifter. The other officers and Chuck Cates were there picking through the materials. Quite often they would ask me, does this look like a bone. I said, if there's any question, put it in the box. So we collected a lot of material from that --
MR. FALLON: All right.
JOHN ERTL: -- sifting.
MR. FALLON: Tell us about your experience, in terms of excavating a particular site like this?
JOHN ERTL: Earlier that summer, we had had a case where it was a homicide and the body had been attempted to be burned in a fire ring. It wasn't a complete destruction of the body and then pieces of it had been buried. So I had, earlier that summer, been involved with excavating the ash material in that pit and also with the excavation of the burial site. And I had previously done at least two other just straight burial sites, without burning involved. Tom Sturdivant indicated to me that he had been also involved in some burn where victims had been burned.
MR. FALLON: In terms of your experience, then, how -- describe for us how the material was actually taken from the pit and what efforts you made so as not to unduly disturb the site or to damage any of the material that you were removing. Tell us how you managed that.
JOHN ERTL: Well, we used the flat shovel to slide underneath it on the hard ground to collect things. We also used a mason's trowel to gently excavate -- excavate and loosen the material and then place it onto the screen. And at that point we had additional mason's trowels and whisk brooms available to move the material to let the smaller materials fall through the screen and then you could examine the material that remained on top of the screen.
MR. FALLON: All right. Who actually did the shovel work, as it were, and who did the actual picking through what was placed in the sifter?
JOHN ERTL: I believe I did most of the shovel work. My photographer also did some shoveling. I don't recall anyone else doing shovel work.
MR. FALLON: And did you have -- or were you aided with lights to conduct this task on that?
JOHN ERTL: No, we didn't have any lights.
MR. FALLON: What time did you --
JOHN ERTL: We used flashlights.
MR. FALLON: Thank you. What time did you cease that work?
JOHN ERTL: It was about 5 p.m.
MR. FALLON: I would like to show you Exhibit No. 50. With the exception of the presence of the dog, I think previously identified as Bear, is that a true and accurate portrayal of the pit?
JOHN ERTL: Yeah. This is the area where we excavated that grayish colored material and sifted it.
MR. FALLON: May the record reflect the witness has identified a darkened gray area he used, which is depicted in the bottom part of Exhibit 50.
THE COURT: Does the defense agree?
MR. BUTING: Yes.
THE COURT: Very well, the record will so reflect.
MR. FALLON: (By Attorney Fallon)~ To whom were the items given that were recovered from this sifting process on Tuesday evening?
JOHN ERTL: To the Calumet County Sheriff's Department evidence technicians.
MR. FALLON: Do you recall any non-biological material of interest that you may have seen that Tuesday evening during the process?
JOHN ERTL: There were some metallic items present also. Maybe -- I don't recall specifically, but things like zipper pulls, snaps, rivets. Certainly there was a lot of the cording from tires present. There was a large -- looked like this bench seat from a vehicle that had been burned.
MR. FALLON: We're going to zoom out on Exhibit 50 here. When it became dark and you ceased operations on the burn pit; what did you do next?
JOHN ERTL: At that point, we turned over all the evidence that we had collected thus far to the Calumet County Sheriff's Department. We were preparing to leave the scene. But before we left, it was requested that we do a luminol treatment of a couple of residences on the property. Luminol is a --
MR. FALLON: Let me stop you there and ask those questions, if I may. First of all, what is luminol?
JOHN ERTL: Like phenolphthalein, luminol is a chemical test that reacts with blood. It's more sensitive than phenolphthalein. It can detect blood that you can't see, if it's been washed or diluted, or if the specks are so small you can't really notice them, Luminol will allow you to see them.
MR. FALLON: How do you spell luminol, please?
JOHN ERTL: L-u-m-i-n-o-l.
MR. FALLON: And how did it work?
JOHN ERTL: You need to have the area you are treating dark. When luminol is sprayed onto a bloodstain, it gives off light so it glows. Anything that's glowing here in the dark, we circle with a piece of chalk and then go back with the lights on; look at the areas we have circled, to see if we can see anything. And then attempt to swab that area and test it again with phenolphthalein.
Phenolphthalein is also presumptive for blood. It's more specific than luminol. Some things will react with luminol such as a copper penny, the lead seals we use. Bleach reacts very strongly with luminol. Those sorts of things, cleaning reagents, chemicals.
MR. FALLON: What types of cleaning -- Did you say reagents?
JOHN ERTL: I did say reagents.
MR. FALLON: What type of -- First of all, what is a reagent?
JOHN ERTL: You buy a bottle of Bo Peep Ammonia -- Reagent is a word that we use in the laboratory to mean some sort of concoction that you come up with for some specific use.
MR. FALLON: Okay.
JOHN ERTL: Something you put on your sink to clean with.
MR. FALLON: I was going to say, can you give us a common every day example of a reagent.
JOHN ERTL: Clorox Bleach.
MR. FALLON: Okay. You were saying -- You were about to explain more on the reagents.
JOHN ERTL: So luminol is more sensitive, but it's less specific than phenolphthalein. So if it glows with luminol, then we would want to go back and retest that area with phenolphthalein, it's more specific. To be useful for later analysis, we would want it to be phenolphthalein positive.
MR. FALLON: Now, which residences were you asked to conduct this luminol process?
JOHN ERTL: Steven Avery's and Charles Avery's.
MR. FALLON: And this was Tuesday evening?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. FALLON: All right. And let's start with Steven Avery's residence, what if anything did you find there that had previously not been examined, or determined, or observed?
JOHN ERTL: There were some visible bloodstains on the couch that we had previously not found, that we found with luminol. Other than that, there was nothing that we hadn't already seen.
MR. FALLON: And when you found these stains on the couch react to the luminol, what did you do?
JOHN ERTL: Circled them with chalk, then we looked at them. They were obviously red brown color, but within the pattern of the couch material, we hadn't seen them previously. So we took cuttings of the couch material and collected the stains.
MR. FALLON: And how about with respect to Charles Avery's residence, what if anything did you find there?
JOHN ERTL: Again, we found bloodstains on the couch.
MR. FALLON: And what did you do?
JOHN ERTL: We cut the fabric to collect the stain.
MR. FALLON: Approximately what time did you conclude your investigative work that evening?
JOHN ERTL: Well, the luminoling went on from about 5:30 till 9:30, but in between Steven's residence and Charles' residence, we also did the garage next to Steven's residence.
MR. FALLON: I was going to ask about that. So what did you do inside the garage?
JOHN ERTL: We had been informed that others had been there before us; there were chalk circles on the floor already. We luminoled, made our own chalk circles, found one spot that was confirmed positive with phenolphthalein, but we were informed that that had already been collected. There was another area that wasn't just a spot on the floor, it was more of a smear.
MR. FALLON: Can you describe this smear in greater detail.
JOHN ERTL: Roughly 3 to 4 foot diameter area. Faintly glowing under the luminol. No specific spots or stains. Couldn't see anything with the lights on. Just swabbed several places where the luminol had been reacting, tested with phenolphthalein and did not get a reaction with the phenolphthalein.
MR. FALLON: All right. So this is that large area you were talking about?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. FALLON: So what did that tell you, as a forensic scientist, about that large area and its reaction to luminol but did not react to the more specific phenolphthalein test?
JOHN ERTL: Well, there was something that had been spread out in a large area that was reacting. I don't know what. And what cross reacts, cleaning chemicals dilute blood, would react, but it may not show up with phenolphthalein if it was diluted enough. So there was really nothing for us to collect from there.
MR. FALLON: All right. Now, as you think about that particular garage examination, do you have a picture in your mind as to approximately where in the garage this larger spot which reacted to the luminol was?
JOHN ERTL: Yes, I do.
MR. FALLON: And tell us about that.
JOHN ERTL: As you face the garage, there was a large overhead door. There was a smaller entry door to the right of that. We went in through that door. Immediately in front of you was an inaccessible area because of the amount of stuff that was in the garage, you know, parts of whatever, I don't know what. And the first stall to the left of the main door was a snowmobile. And then in the further stall away from that door was a small SUV type vehicle.
This smeared area was, if you walk in the door, move a little bit to the left around that material, between the material that's on the floor and the snowmobile and then walk straight back toward the back wall until you run into the clutter. It was right in that area in the corner of the clutter, at the rear of the snowmobile.
MR. FALLON: All right. I'm going to have my colleague show you what has been received as Exhibit 107. Is Exhibit 107, would that be of some assistance to you in pointing out the general location of this larger spot?
JOHN ERTL: There's less clutter than I remember there being but, yes, the vehicle, the snowmobile and some amount of clutter is there.
MR. FALLON: All right. Is it sufficient for purposes of giving you -- giving all of us here a general location of that?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. FALLON: All right. I will have that projected on the screen then. Showing Exhibit 107, you have the laser pointer.
JOHN ERTL: To the rear of this tractor, to the rear of the snowmobile.
MR. FALLON: So you are pointing -- the record will reflect the witness is taking the laser pointer and pointing to the area immediately in front of the green tractor and to the right and behind the snowmobile. Would that be accurate, Mr. Ertl?
MR. BUTING: I would not agree with that.
THE COURT: Is that to the front or the rear of the tractor?
MR. BUTING: You are pointing to the rear of the tractor?
MR. FALLON: (By Attorney Fallon)~ The rear of the tractor?
JOHN ERTL: Right.
MR. BUTING: Okay. An area just to the rear of the green tractor would be accurate.
THE COURT: All right. The record will so reflect.
MR. FALLON: Very well.
MR. FALLON: (By Attorney Fallon)~ And, again, would you give us an approximate size of this box?
JOHN ERTL: Three to four foot diameter.
MR. FALLON: Was it circular in shape or oddly shaped?
JOHN ERTL: It was irregularly shaped.
THE COURT: Excuse me. For clarification, when you say 3 to 4 feet do you mean 3 to 4 feet in diameter, or radius, or what?
MR. FALLON: I think he said 3 to 4 foot diameter.
THE COURT: Okay.
JOHN ERTL: Edge to edge.
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. FALLON: (By Attorney Fallon)~ Now, is there -- is there a longer measurement that you could somehow use; I know you said a diameter suggests to us across of 3 to 4 feet. Is there a general length measurement that you can estimate for us, or not?
JOHN ERTL: No, I didn't use a measuring tape to measure this area.
MR. FALLON: All right. After completing your examination of the two residences and the garage with the luminol process, what did you do then?
THE COURT: Excuse me, Mr. Fallon.
MR. FALLON: Two questions and I'm done.
THE COURT: Very well.
MR. FALLON: (By Attorney Fallon)~ What did you do?
JOHN ERTL: We had collected the cuttings from the couches in both residences, turned those over to Calumet County. And then talked with Investigator Wiegert and Special Agent Fassbender and were released from the scene.
MR. FALLON: About what time did you clear the scene?
JOHN ERTL: It was about 9:30 p.m.
MR. FALLON: Very well. Were you called back at all or was that your last trip?
JOHN ERTL: That was the last.
MR. FALLON: Thank you. We have no further questions for the witness.
THE COURT: Very well. Members of the jury, at this time we'll take our morning break. I will remind you as usual that you are not to discuss the case or this morning's testimony during the break. Thank you.
(Jury not present.)
THE COURT: Counsel, then, please report back at 10 minutes to 11.
MR. KRATZ: Thank you.
(Recess taken.)
THE COURT: At this time we're back on the record, Mr. Buting, you may commence your cross-examination.
MR. BUTING: Thank you, your Honor.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY ATTORNEY BUTING:
MR. BUTING: Good morning, Mr. Ertl.
JOHN ERTL: Good morning.
MR. BUTING: You have an interesting background and what I would like to do is introduce your curriculum vitae or -- I'm not sure exactly what you call it, statement of qualifications. See if you can identify that for us.
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: That's Exhibit 159 and that is a statement of your qualifications, your training and experience; is that right?
JOHN ERTL: That's right.
MR. BUTING: Okay. I will leave it here in case you need to refresh your recollection on it. And by the way, you were referring to some notes --
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: -- you mentioned that you -- Could I see those please so that I may -- Just show me what it was you were refreshing your recollection with.
JOHN ERTL: I have my case notes, I believe you have those, my reports. And this is a sheet I just wrote up last night while I was --
MR. BUTING: Okay. Thank you. If I can just take these with me for a few minutes and I will leave that with you there. Now, in terms of education, I'm not sure that we got the degree out; you are actually -- you have a bachelor of science in ...
JOHN ERTL: Chemistry.
MR. BUTING: Chemistry, okay. And then you also have a master's in applied molecular biology, right?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: So it seems like you were on your way to a career as a -- in fact, some of your articles in there look like you were on a career to be a plant biologist of some sort, career path originally?
JOHN ERTL: I spent a lot of time doing that, yes.
MR. BUTING: In fact, you were a researcher for 10 years with UW Parkside, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And then you worked at Abbott Labs for a period of time?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: How long was that?
JOHN ERTL: About a year.
MR. BUTING: And why did you leave that job?
JOHN ERTL: I got a call from the Crime Laboratory in Milwaukee; they had an opening and wanted to know if I was interested, and I was.
MR. BUTING: Okay.
JOHN ERTL: I had applied for a Milwaukee job at the same time as Abbott, but didn't hear back from them.
MR. BUTING: Okay. So you at some point decided to change from being a researcher to being an actual forensic scientist?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: Okay. And so, in essence, with your field response kind of duties -- I'm sure I'm oversimplifying this, but you are sort of like those guys on CSI who come to the scene and look for evidence, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yeah, those guys are portraying what -- some of what I do.
MR. BUTING: Some of what you do?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: You are the guy that goes there and finds whatever?
JOHN ERTL: Right.
MR. BUTING: Okay. Now, I do want to ask about a couple of things, though. Apparently your forensic science career got interrupted when you went to Texas for a period of time?
JOHN ERTL: Right.
MR. BUTING: You went from the Milwaukee Crime Lab to M.D. Anderson, which is a world renowned cancer treatment and research facility?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And you kind of got back into that field for a short while?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Why is that, you just didn't like the forensics field in Milwaukee?
JOHN ERTL: No, I had got engaged to a woman who dearly wanted to move to Texas and I went along with that.
MR. BUTING: I see. I see.
JOHN ERTL: The M.D. Anderson job was the job -- first job I could get that I was qualified for down there.
MR. BUTING: Sure.
JOHN ERTL: The Crime Laboratory job then came about three months thereafter.
MR. BUTING: And you are talking about the Texas Crime Laboratory?
JOHN ERTL: Texas Crime Laboratory.
MR. BUTING: And you were there for about -- what, not quite a year, 10 months, or something?
JOHN ERTL: Right.
MR. BUTING: And then you moved back to Milwaukee?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Or to Madison, or where?
JOHN ERTL: To Madison.
MR. BUTING: Okay. And that's when you got your job -- your current job with the Crime Lab in the Madison unit?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Okay. Now, during that period of time when you have been a forensic scientist, did you have training in how to go to a scene, properly collect, mark, preserve evidence?
JOHN ERTL: We had on-the-job training in Texas.
MR. BUTING: All right.
JOHN ERTL: I attended scenes in Texas. When I got back to Madison, I again attended scenes. I went through the State Crime Laboratory's Evidence Technician School where the fleet put on a school to train law enforcement officers how to collect evidence at the scene, properly process the scene, collect the evidence. And then let them know what we're interested in as far as getting it back to the laboratory, how to properly package it and seal it.
MR. BUTING: So would it be fair to say, then, that you view yourself and your employer, the Wisconsin Crime Lab, view yourself as a highly skilled, competent, evidence collector at the scene?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: All right. One of the things I noticed on your qualifications, a course you took was called courtroom testimony techniques?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And that's where you are taught how to properly present yourself, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: How to look at the jury when you are giving answers?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: I'm not saying anything is wrong with that, it's just specialized, that's training that you get as part of your job?
JOHN ERTL: Right. Coming to court is part of my job. I have had training at that -- on that.
MR. BUTING: Training that ordinary people, citizens who get up here, usually wouldn't know, to turn and look at the jury and answer questions and stuff like that?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. BUTING: Unless they are coached to do so by somebody, right?
MR. FALLON: Objection to the term, coached to do so.
THE COURT: Sustained.
MR. FALLON: Ask that it be stricken.
THE COURT: Court will order that it be stricken from the document.
MR. BUTING: (By Attorney Buting)~ Your current title is senior forensic scientist; is that right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Okay. And you do a lot of DNA testing?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: The unit you are attached to is a serology unit?
JOHN ERTL: That's an historical name, yes.
MR. BUTING: Okay. Serology, meaning a broader range of bodily fluid testings, right?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: Include blood, semen, saliva?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And in the old days, before DNA, that's where people would do ADO typing of blood and that sort of thing?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. BUTING: That's not done so much any more in your lab?
JOHN ERTL: That's also correct.
MR. BUTING: All right. But it does include some training to be able to use these presumptive tests for blood?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Like phenolphthalein, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Or luminol?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And, actually, luminol is not what you would consider a presumptive test for blood?
JOHN ERTL: It's an aid in identifying the location of blood.
MR. BUTING: Okay. But it also identifies so many other agents that its not specific to blood?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. BUTING: It's really just something to help you visualize some areas so that you can then later go and do the real presumptive tests for blood?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. BUTING: Okay. Now, in your training and your experience with evidence collection, would you agree that it's important that -- that if you are collecting evidence at the scene that you have an objective, disinterested status with regard to that crime scene?
JOHN ERTL: Yeah. As a scientist, that's typically the way we like to think of ourselves.
MR. BUTING: Sure. So you wouldn't want somebody who has got some personal involvement with the suspect even, to be going to the suspect's house, that could taint whatever objectivity you might otherwise have when you collect evidence; is that right?
MR. FALLON: Objection, speculation and relevance.
THE COURT: I'm going to sustain the objection.
MR. BUTING: (By Attorney Buting)~ Let me ask it this way, as part of your training and your experience with the Crime Lab collecting evidence, are there any kind of rules that say only disinterested parties should collect evidence at a scene?
JOHN ERTL: I think there are -- I don't know if there are formal rules, but there are sort of informal rules. I have not ever had it come up with, in regards to a scene, but cases that are submitted to the laboratory, if an analyst happens to know the suspect, or the victim, or even their relatives, they will excuse themselves and ask not to be involved in that case.
MR. BUTING: Sure. And that's just -- that's just common practice, custom and practice in your lab, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And with regard to collection of scene material, biological type material, that may have DNA in them, there's a very specialized -- well, I shouldn't say that -- but there is a specialized training to go through -- that people go through in order to collect that kind of evidence?
JOHN ERTL: Yes, there is.
MR. BUTING: DNA evidence, although it's very helpful to scientists, it also has the drawback that it's very sensitive and potentially contamination can affect the results, right?
JOHN ERTL: I believe that's a possibility.
MR. BUTING: Okay. And, for instance, you know how DNA processing works, but one of the things that's so good about DNA is that you can get profiles from very tiny, little amounts of DNA that may be left at a scene, right?
JOHN ERTL: That's true.
MR. BUTING: And the way that's done is, you take what otherwise would be a very tiny amount and then it's amplified, it's multiplied, through this process in the lab, to the point where it's testable, correct?
JOHN ERTL: That's true.
MR. BUTING: And so when it's in that very small stage, or status, if it's contaminated in some way, then the contaminate is multiplied along with it, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes, it is.
MR. BUTING: So that has a great potential, then, to give you unreliable results if that would happen?
JOHN ERTL: I would agree.
MR. BUTING: And should that happen, should some evidence come to your lab that's been contaminated at the scene, you wouldn't necessarily know that when you do the test, right?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. BUTING: And so, have you heard of a phrase, garbage in, garbage out, from a science perspective?
JOHN ERTL: In regards to computers usually.
MR. BUTING: Okay.
JOHN ERTL: I guess.
MR. BUTING: But in your field that would also apply to whatever is brought to your lab for DNA testing; if it's contaminated at the beginning, the results will also be contaminated, or I should say, unreliable?
JOHN ERTL: Yes. Nothing that we do at the lab is going to decontaminate it.
MR. BUTING: All right. Thank you. And, in fact, in your lab, then, there is another risk, items may be contaminated at the scene when they are collected, if they are not collected properly, right?
JOHN ERTL: Right.
MR. BUTING: They may be contaminated at some point from that -- from the scene until they reach your lab, conceivably?
JOHN ERTL: Possibly.
MR. BUTING: And then there is also the risk of contamination of an item once it gets to your lab, right?
JOHN ERTL: That's also possible.
MR. BUTING: In fact, during the test process, contamination may occur in your lab?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And, in fact, does occur in your lab?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Any lab?
JOHN ERTL: Yup.
MR. BUTING: All crime labs have that risk and reality that materials, test materials, do sometimes become contaminated, correct?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. BUTING: And, in fact, that's something that's of such concern to your lab that you -- you keep a record of such contamination incident, whenever it's discovered?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: What's that called?
JOHN ERTL: Contamination log.
MR. BUTING: Okay. And that relates to incidents where the contamination has been able to be discovered by the scientist who's working on it, right?
JOHN ERTL: That's right.
MR. BUTING: If some contamination occurs in your lab, though, and it's not discovered by the analyst, there is no record of that, right?
JOHN ERTL: There's no knowledge and no record, right.
MR. BUTING: All right. Now, sir, you mentioned that you were, on November 4th or 5th, I'm going to direct your attention to that, the first day, you said your answering service got a call; did you actually speak directly, yourself, with Detective Remiker?
JOHN ERTL: Yes, I called him back.
MR. BUTING: Okay. And he gave you what information at that point?
MR. FALLON: Objection, hearsay.
MR. BUTING: Not for the truth of the matter, simply to establish what his perspective was.
THE COURT: I think before I can rule on the objection, I have to hear the answer to know the nature for which it's being offered.
JOHN ERTL: He told me his name, what agency he was with, that he was working in conjunction with another agency and with the state agency and that he was requesting our assistance with regard to a missing persons case. And he told me the location of the place and he told me who owned the property.
MR. BUTING: And then you said you -- by the time you arrived, it was about 4:00?
JOHN ERTL: I believe so.
MR. BUTING: Are you sure of that?
JOHN ERTL: I'm not real good at keeping track of time in my head and you now have my notes on times at the --
MR. BUTING: I will give those back to you, sir.
JOHN ERTL: -- at the scene.
MR. BUTING: I'm sorry.
JOHN ERTL: I will make notations as I do things throughout the day and I will note the time.
MR. BUTING: Sure. Take your time and refresh your recollection, if you will, please.
JOHN ERTL: Yes. Arrived at the scene at 4:00 p.m.
MR. BUTING: All right. And the first place you went, though, was to the Command Post. I think you described it as a firetruck with a canopy over it.
JOHN ERTL: Yeah.
MR. BUTING: And was that down at sort of the entrance to this salvage yard area where there were some -- some business buildings and that sort of thing?
JOHN ERTL: It was just before that.
MR. BUTING: Before you even got to that you said?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Right down along Avery Road?
JOHN ERTL: I would say where Avery Road first forked.
MR. BUTING: Okay. And you spoke with Mr. Wiegert and Mr. Fassbender, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Was anybody else briefing you at that point?
JOHN ERTL: Not really briefing me, but when we first arrived, you know, you go through a checkpoint, tell them who you are, who's in the vehicle with you. And they record that. And then you are directed to go down the road to where you see the firetruck.
And then someone met us there. I don't know who. I told them who I was with, who I was looking for at that point, Detective Remiker. And then I was directed to under the canopy, next to the firetruck. I was introduced to Investigator Wiegert and Tom Fassbender at that point, but there were many other people present.
MR. BUTING: Sure. And then did you go down from that point, directly to where the RAV4 had been located?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: So how long would you say you spend -- how long would it take from when you got there at 4:00, until you got to the spot where the RAV4 was, 15 minutes maybe.
JOHN ERTL: Fifteen minutes to a half an hour.
MR. BUTING: Okay. And when you got there, the RAV4 was no longer covered with a tarp?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. BUTING: Counsel, could you please put up that photograph?
MR. KRATZ: I have been unplugged.
MR. BUTING: We're still not set up, right?
MR. KRATZ: Can you use the ELMO?
MR. BUTING: No, I would like to use this, please.
MR. BUTING: (By Attorney Buting)~ You are sure, though, that the vehicle was not covered with a tarp when you first arrived?
JOHN ERTL: They were in the process of removing the tarp. The tarp was present. I was told that some of the branches that were now lying on the ground had been on top of the vehicle, but fell off when they had pulled the tarp.
MR. BUTING: Okay.
JOHN ERTL: But I don't believe I was present for the unveiling.
MR. BUTING: You don't recall ever seeing the vehicle completely enclosed, covered with this tinted tarp thing?
JOHN ERTL: No, I don't.
MR. BUTING: All right.
THE COURT: Members of the jury, at this time I should let you know that the technical problems we have been experiencing are not the result of any actions by either party to this action and I'm told that, hopefully over the noon hour, they are going to be addressed and things will be cleaned up.
MR. BUTING: We hope. I believe 144 exhibit. I don't know if you have it marked yet, 80 or 81 would do fine.
MR. BUTING: (By Attorney Buting)~ All right. We'll come back to this in a minute. He's going to have to reboot the thing and get us in a position where you can to look at this photo. So I will move on. We'll come right back to that in a few minutes.
You, I believe, said that you took some photographs that we saw, right, one of the first things you did was take photographs?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And looked at the debris and things that were piled up against it, to see if there might be any biological evidence you could collect?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And did you remove those -- that debris at that point?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: So you actually moved the Rambler hood away completely?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And that fence post, we'll show you in just a moment, but we have seen it many times already, that sort of fence post that's leaning up against the right of the car, that was pulled away?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: The branches were uncovered?
JOHN ERTL: (No verbal response.)
MR. BUTING: Could we have a quick side bar, your Honor?
THE COURT: Sure.
MR. BUTING: (By Attorney Buting)~ All right. Mr. Ertl, during the break we were able to get this exhibit that we saw yesterday, Exhibit 143, up on the screen for you. Do you see this area in the center of the screen where there appears to be something covered by a tarp?
JOHN ERTL: Yes, I do.
MR. BUTING: Did the RAV4 look like that to you when you first arrived?
JOHN ERTL: No.
MR. BUTING: You never saw it in that condition at all?
JOHN ERTL: No.
MR. BUTING: Counsel, could you just minimize it back to the desktop and then show us, again, the electronic signature for that, please.
MR. BUTING: Can you see that counsel has put his cursor over this photograph now. I don't know if you can read that, it says date picture taken, 11/5/2005, at 4:16 p.m.?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: All right. Now, it's your testimony that you got to the scene of this RAV4 right around 4:16 or 4:15 p.m., right?
JOHN ERTL: I arrived on the scene around 4 p.m., 15 minutes to a half hour later we were escorted down to the RAV4.
MR. BUTING: Well, if it was 4:15 when you got to the RAV4, then the date or the time stamp on this particular photograph is either an error or your memory is an error, right, because it wasn't like that when you got there?
JOHN ERTL: Well, I gave you a window of time. I'm not saying I arrived at 4:15; I do not know that. I estimated, roughly 15 minutes to a half an hour, talking with the investigators under the canopy. I don't have a record of exactly when we proceeded to the RAV 4.
MR. BUTING: All right. And you -- you mentioned that it was sort of misting at that point, but it wasn't really raining very hard, or at all?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Had it -- Did it appear that it had been raining before you got there?
JOHN ERTL: It seemed to have been; there were puddles.
MR. BUTING: All right. So you -- Tell me for a minute, maybe I misunderstood the sequence here. At some point you talked about it being lightening and very dramatic, I think were your terms?
JOHN ERTL: Right.
MR. BUTING: When was that?
JOHN ERTL: That was near the time we were leaving.
MR. BUTING: So more like 8:00 or 8:30, something like that?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: But at some point before that, was it also raining while you were there?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Do you know when that started?
JOHN ERTL: I didn't keep track of the weather.
MR. BUTING: I think you said just after dark it began to pour?
JOHN ERTL: I remember it was raining pretty steady while we were looking at the burn barrels. It was dark out.
MR. BUTING: All right. And just after dark at that time of year would have been 5:30?
JOHN ERTL: Yeah.
MR. BUTING: All right. So when that was going on and it was raining, the tarp -- I'm sorry -- the vehicle was untented, uncovered?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And you didn't stay, you testified you did not stay with the RAV4 that entire time you were at the scene, you moved around to different locations, right?
JOHN ERTL: That is correct.
MR. BUTING: Your partner, Mr. Zhang, is that how it's pronounced?
JOHN ERTL: It's pronounced many ways. I say Zhang. He says more like Zhang.
MR. BUTING: Zhang, okay. Does Mr. Zhang also have field response training?
JOHN ERTL: Yes, he does.
MR. BUTING: Does he also have training in collection of evidence?
JOHN ERTL: I believe he does. He's been at the lab much longer than I have. He's been on field response much longer than I have.
MR. BUTING: All right.
JOHN ERTL: I don't know the extent of his training.
MR. BUTING: In fact, his responsibilities are more field response than yours typically are, right?
JOHN ERTL: No, he's a toxicologist normally.
MR. BUTING: Oh, I see. So the way it works for field response is, they take different people from different units who are ...
JOHN ERTL: Willing.
MR. BUTING: Willing. All right. Anybody ask you to go in Steven Avery's residence that first night, November 5th?
JOHN ERTL: I don't believe so.
MR. BUTING: You and your partner, Mr. Zhang, would certainly have been a qualified evidence collection team to go into Mr. Avery's residence, wouldn't you, that night?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: This is Saturday, November 5th, correct?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And so there's no reason why Mr. Fassbender couldn't have used you and Mr. Zhang to search Mr. Avery's residence on Saturday night instead of the people that he did use, right?
JOHN ERTL: He could have.
MR. BUTING: And you actually have a master's degree, right?
JOHN ERTL: In molecular biology.
MR. BUTING: Okay. And years of experience as a Crime Lab field response analyst, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And instead, Mr. Fassbender had you going around and taking photographs and looking through garbage; isn't that right?
MR. FALLON: Objection, argumentative.
THE COURT: Sustained, to the form of the question.
MR. BUTING: (By Attorney Buting)~ In any event, no one asked you to go into Mr. Avery's house or garage that first night, November 5, 2005?
JOHN ERTL: That's true.
MR. BUTING: And while it was raining very hard, you obviously couldn't do much outside?
JOHN ERTL: Right. We were basically waiting for the wrecker crew and trailer to arrive.
MR. BUTING: So you had time to kill. And rather than use you to search Mr. Avery's residence, they directed you to a golf cart, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And I think there was something -- oh, there were some burn barrels, right?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: And by the way, that golf cart, I just want to make it clear, you -- that was in a completely different building, you mentioned a shed or something?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Business building?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And these dark stains that you found, you did test, and they proved not to be blood, right?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: Sometimes on something that may be reddish brown in color, may look to the human eye as possible blood, but when you later test it with one of your presumptive tests, you find out otherwise, right?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. BUTING: And that happened a number of times in this particular case?
JOHN ERTL: Yes, it did.
MR. BUTING: And when you went back to the scene with the wrecker, after that was completed, around 8:30 I think you said?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Mr. Fassbender told you that your services weren't needed any more, for that night, right?
JOHN ERTL: It wasn't immediately thereafter but, yes, eventually around 8:45.
MR. BUTING: He didn't tell you that there was a search ongoing right that moment in Mr. Avery's residence, did he?
JOHN ERTL: I didn't know that.
MR. BUTING: Didn't ask you to go assist the people that he selected to do the search of Mr. Avery's residence, did he?
JOHN ERTL: No, he didn't ask that.
MR. BUTING: Okay. And you certainly would have been available, right, you testified to that?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: You also mentioned that when you got to the area of the RAV, there were some other officers or other people around?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: But you don't know what the circumstances of the access to that RAV was before you arrived on the scene, right?
JOHN ERTL: No, I don't.
MR. BUTING: That's not something in your knowledge, so you don't know, really, what if anything happened to that RAV before you arrived, at 4:15 or so?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. BUTING: Okay. Now, Sunday, November 6th, is when you arrived -- you went all the way back to Madison the prior night, and it's about a four hour drive; is that right?
JOHN ERTL: It's about a three and a half hour drive, but the drive back, due to the reaction of the trailer, we weren't able to go over 50 miles per hour.
MR. BUTING: Okay.
JOHN ERTL: So took closer to four and a half hours to get back.
MR. BUTING: All right. But, actually, I'm -- I'm on Sunday now, when you are coming back.
JOHN ERTL: Okay.
MR. BUTING: So you drove up and you got back to the Avery Salvage yard about 3:15 or 3:30 you said?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And there were three areas that they wanted you to look at when you first got there, right?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. BUTING: And none of those three, when you first arrived, included Mr. Avery's residence, or the detached garage next to Mr. Avery's residence, did it?
JOHN ERTL: No.
MR. BUTING: Instead they sent you off to this quarry, a gravel -- I don't know what you want to call it -- to the east of Avery Road, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: I don't know if we have a photograph of that layout, maybe we could identify where this is. Counsel, do you know if you have one of those areas?
MR. KRATZ: I don't know what you are asking for.
MR. BUTING: An aerial photograph far enough out to show this east of the Avery Road area. Actually, let me see the book.
MR. KRATZ: Maybe 86, counsel.
MR. BUTING: I don't think 86 goes out far enough, but we could try that. Let's see. How about 85, put that one up. Or even better, 91, 91 shows it I think.
MR. KRATZ: 91 is a diagram.
MR. BUTING: 92. 91 is a -- I will show you.
MR. BUTING: (By Attorney Buting)~ All right. We have got Exhibit 91 on the screen. If you could just orient yourself for a moment, with that, if you can.
JOHN ERTL: Okay. I have got it.
MR. BUTING: Is this the gravel area that you were first sent to on this photograph?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Could you please point at it with the pointer?
JOHN ERTL: It was right about in there.
MR. BUTING: Okay. Record should reflect left side -- upper left quarter of the screen is being pointed at. And it's a -- looks like a whole excavated block almost?
JOHN ERTL: Yes, it was a quarry.
MR. FALLON: Your Honor, if counsel is willing, I believe it will be or we could stipulate that it will be identified as Michels' Quarry.
MR. BUTING: Michels, M-i-c-h-e-l-s.
MR. FALLON: I believe that's correct.
MR. BUTING: That's fine.
THE COURT: Parties agree?
MR. KRATZ: Yes.
THE COURT: Very well.
MR. BUTING: (By Attorney Buting)~ All right. And then at this -- there was some searcher had apparently been there before because there was a -- was it an orange flag or something?
JOHN ERTL: Right.
MR. BUTING: And you began working that and you found something did test positive for blood of some sort, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Again, you didn't know whether it was animal or human?
JOHN ERTL: Right.
MR. BUTING: And to your knowledge, did that, whatever you found over there, eventually have anything at all to do with this case?
JOHN ERTL: I don't know what happened to that sample after I collected it.
MR. BUTING: Okay. So you don't know whether that turned out to be flesh and blood that had anything to do with this case or not?
JOHN ERTL: No, I don't.
MR. BUTING: Okay. Well, we'll deal with it later, then. Then you also, then, after you had finished those three tasks, the other two being searching two other vehicles nearby where the RAV was; is that right?
JOHN ERTL: Well, the three tasks they had in mind for us when we arrived weren't the three tasks we actually completed that day.
MR. BUTING: Okay. So you didn't actually do the vehicles that day?
JOHN ERTL: We did do the vehicles.
MR. BUTING: All right.
JOHN ERTL: We did the gravel quarry, then we went into Steven Avery's residence, and then we did the vehicles.
MR. BUTING: So the third task, being the burn barrels, you didn't get to that day?
JOHN ERTL: Right.
MR. BUTING: So instead they called you into Mr. Avery's residence for some sort of blood spatter examination, right?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: Now, I notice on your statement of qualifications, you actually had some blood spatter analysis training, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Are you one of the people that's presented by the lab, to courts and juries, to testify about blood spatter analysis?
JOHN ERTL: No, I'm not.
MR. BUTING: Someone else in your lab does that?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: But you have general knowledge that -- that there -- as you demonstrated before, that if someone has a cut and they flip their finger, the drops will fly off, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And, likewise, you have been to a number of homicide scenes, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And often times blood spatter is present at the scene?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: And there's such a thing as high velocity blood spatter, right?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: And that's something that's often found when someone is shot, with a gun --
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: -- right? The speed of the bullet, without being too graphic here, but causes blood to fly off at a high velocity when it hits a wall, or ceiling, or whatever, an object, it leaves a pattern that can be distinguished from other types of spatter, right?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: And when you went to Mr. Avery's residence, you saw no such high velocity spatter, right?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: And when you looked in his garage, you saw no high velocity blood spatter, right?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: And, then, there's also other types of spatter, lower velocity, like if someone -- if there's a beating and someone is bleeding, you know, head jerking back and forth, something like that, right?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: And then there's also something called cast off spatter, right?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: And that would occur if somebody is taking a knife, if someone is, let's say, laying on a mattress, a victim is laying on a mattress, a victim is laying on a mattress and being stabbed repeatedly with a knife, as they come up and down, the knife may cast off blood spatter, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And you saw no evidence of that in Mr. Avery's residence, did you?
JOHN ERTL: No, I did not.
MR. BUTING: And you saw no evidence of that in Mr. Avery's garage either, did you?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. BUTING: And none of this low velocity stuff that I talked about that can be from when someone is being beaten either?
JOHN ERTL: Right.
MR. BUTING: No blood spatter at all in Mr. Avery's residence, of any kind?
JOHN ERTL: Just bloodstains. No recognizable patterns.
MR. BUTING: Right. And those bloodstains were scattered, more isolated, right?
JOHN ERTL: There were a grouping in the bathroom and then the entry door directly across the hallway from the bathroom.
MR. BUTING: Okay. One spot?
JOHN ERTL: I would say the other one on the other door would have been more isolated from those.
MR. BUTING: Okay.
JOHN ERTL: And the ones on the couch were near the second entry.
MR. BUTING: But, for instance, the ones in the bathroom, there's one on the floor, right?
JOHN ERTL: Not just one, but several.
MR. BUTING: Okay. And also one on the sink?
JOHN ERTL: Some in the sink, some on the vanity.
MR. BUTING: All right. Consistent with somebody who may have cut their finger or cut themselves shaving in a bathroom?
JOHN ERTL: Possibly. The ones on the floor and the vanity looked like they had been diluted down with water. So, yeah, cut yourself and then cleaned up.
MR. BUTING: Okay. But still there, where you could see them?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: In fact, it was obvious to you that somehow you were informed that all of those had been sampled prior to your arrival on Sunday evening, November 6th?
JOHN ERTL: No, not all of them.
MR. BUTING: Okay. Some of them had apparently, though, right?
JOHN ERTL: The ones on the entry door in the bathroom had.
MR. BUTING: The one on the floor?
JOHN ERTL: None in the bathroom had been sampled yet.
MR. BUTING: Okay. All right. So you identified the ones in the bathroom that had not yet been identified, but the other ones had been identified and sampled before?
JOHN ERTL: Except for the ones on the couch and the second entry door.
MR. BUTING: Well, the ones on the couch you didn't notice that night, I thought it was ...
JOHN ERTL: That was later.
MR. BUTING: We're just talking about Sunday night for now, okay.
JOHN ERTL: Okay. So the ones on the entry door across from the bathroom had been sampled previously. The one on the other entry door and the ones in the bathroom had not.
MR. BUTING: Okay. So you went to the entry door of Mr. Avery's bedroom and looked at that --
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: -- that area? Did you actually go inside of his bedroom?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Did you see a Toyota key sitting on the floor in plain view?
JOHN ERTL: No, I didn't.
MR. BUTING: Did you see a key anywhere in that bedroom on the night of November 6th?
JOHN ERTL: I don't recall seeing any keys. I wasn't looking for keys.
MR. BUTING: You talked about trace evidence as being things like fibers and hairs and those sorts of things, right?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. BUTING: Trace evidence can also, occasionally, be left just by handling something, correct?
JOHN ERTL: Sure.
MR. BUTING: If you know? If you are not -- if it's beyond your qualifications just please tell me.
JOHN ERTL: Well, you could consider DNA as trace evidence and that can be left by just handling items.
MR. BUTING: And, particularly, if somebody uses an item daily, one would expect handling something daily that there would be their DNA left on there, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Such as a car key?
JOHN ERTL: Sure.
MR. BUTING: Somebody who had had a car key for five or six years, handling it every single day, if you were to test that in your lab, you would likely find their DNA, wouldn't you?
JOHN ERTL: I would think that would be a good possibility.
MR. BUTING: Unless somebody had wiped it off, cleaned it up in some way, before you got to it, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yeah.
MR. BUTING: Okay. Now, you mentioned that Mr. Cates was with you, also on Sunday evening, correct?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: And his specialty is fingerprints?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Was he asked to look in Mr. Avery's residence to see if there were any fingerprints of note?
JOHN ERTL: No, we were sent in mostly to look for blood spatter pattern. But as a fingerprint analyst, when he sees a fingerprint, he will look at it.
MR. BUTING: If someone is wearing gloves, they may not leave fingerprints, right?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: But if someone is wearing -- is not wearing gloves, they might very well leave fingerprints when they touch items, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And for instance, let's go to the RAV4 a minute and imagine that this is the hood, this desk right in front of you. All right.
JOHN ERTL: Okay.
MR. BUTING: To open a hood such as the RAV4, which you know how to do that, right?
JOHN ERTL: Well, if it's like my car, you have to pull a lever inside the vehicle --
MR. BUTING: Right. Okay.
JOHN ERTL: -- that releases it a little bit. Then you have to reach in under the hood --
MR. BUTING: Sure.
JOHN ERTL: -- and release another lever.
MR. BUTING: So then you release another lever and then your fingers in some way come in contact with the hood as you lift it, right?
JOHN ERTL: Right.
MR. BUTING: And let's talk about the tailgate of this RAV4 a moment, okay? You looked at that carefully?
MR. BUTING: Do you want to put up that exhibit for me for a moment, please. It's Exhibit 29.
MR. KRATZ: You want the one Mr. Ertl looked at, or you want the one Ms Sturm looked at?
MR. BUTING: Twenty-nine, I think, is Sturm's.
MR. KRATZ: Not the Crime Lab one?
MR. BUTING: Is there a rear view one?
MR. KRATZ: Absolutely, 135.
MR. BUTING: That's fine. That would do.
MR. BUTING: (By Attorney Buting)~ Can you locate the handle or the lever that one would use to open that rear tailgate door?
JOHN ERTL: I'm not real familiar with that vehicle, I would assume ...
MR. BUTING: All right.
MR. BUTING: This one is taken at night, if we might look at 29, please, counsel.
MR. BUTING: (By Attorney Buting)~ Does that give you a little bit better view?
JOHN ERTL: I can see the lock there. I would imagine it's built into that area.
MR. BUTING: And so if somebody is going to open that tailgate door, they have to put their hands right near the lock lever and in some way pull it open with their fingers, right?
JOHN ERTL: That would be the way I would do it.
MR. BUTING: And if they are not wearing gloves, they might leave fingerprints, correct?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: If they are wearing gloves, they might not leave fingerprints, or would not, right?
JOHN ERTL: Depending on the type of glove, you can get some surgical gloves where fingerprints do pass through.
MR. BUTING: All right. But if you are wearing gloves, you are also not bleeding all over the place, are you, if the bleeding -- If you have got a cut on your finger and you are wearing gloves inside of that vehicle, you are not going to be dripping blood into the vehicle, are you?
JOHN ERTL: If the -- If you are not bleeding enough to soak the glove and then seep through the glove.
MR. BUTING: Sure. If you're bleeding that much, it would be obvious, you would have blood on the steering wheel and everything, right?
JOHN ERTL: It's hard to say. I don't know the extent of the bleeding. It would depend what you would touch.
MR. BUTING: Well, if you were bleeding and not wearing gloves, inside the vehicle, you would also be touching and operating things like the steering wheel and the -- whatever else you might be touching, the door, the door handle, that sort of thing, right?
MR. FALLON: Objection, highly speculative. There's just too many variables unaccounted for in that hypothetical.
THE COURT: Sustained.
MR. BUTING: (By Attorney Buting)~ You have seen cases where people do leave fingerprints, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And you take photographs of those?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Did you take any photographs, or see any fingerprints anywhere inside this vehicle?
JOHN ERTL: I only looked inside the vehicle, through the glass, with a flashlight, at night. I did not see any fingerprints.
MR. BUTING: And did Mr. Cates process the vehicle at all for any kind of fingerprints?
JOHN ERTL: Mr. Cates wasn't at the scene when the vehicle was at the scene.
MR. BUTING: Okay. So there was no fingerprint processing done of the vehicle at the scene, right?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. BUTING: That would have occurred later, at the Crime Lab?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: All right. Well, we'll talk with those people later. Going back to Sunday, you mentioned that Mr. Cates was with you and you said something about these two other vehicles, near the pond, that he processed the fingerprints; do you recall that?
JOHN ERTL: He did not process them on Sunday; he processed them later.
MR. BUTING: Oh, that's right, you said there was dew on it?
JOHN ERTL: There was dew on it.
MR. BUTING: Okay. But there was some bloodstains in the other two vehicles?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And these are the two vehicles that were junk salvage vehicles, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Many of which get there because they have been in automobile accidents, right?
JOHN ERTL: I assume so, yes.
MR. BUTING: Where sometimes people are injured and bleeding, right?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. BUTING: So that might, in fact, account for the blood that was in those other two vehicles, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yeah. I got that impression when -- just thinking about the number of sites the cadaver dogs were interested in and then thinking about this as a salvage yard and some of these vehicles were probably in accidents and they have may have been -- blood put in them at that point.
MR. BUTING: Totally unrelated to this case?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: And to your knowledge, did the -- did anything that Mr. Cates found, either blood or fingerprints, on those other two vehicles, have anything at all to do with this case?
JOHN ERTL: To my knowledge, I do not know.
MR. BUTING: Okay. Now, November 7th, that's a Monday, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Did you stay overnight in the area, I assume?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: So you weren't back at the lab, you don't know what was going on with the RAV4 that was at the lab?
JOHN ERTL: That's right.
MR. BUTING: Okay. You started doing -- Did you actually complete the burn barrels? No, you started them, then got interrupted?
JOHN ERTL: Right.
MR. BUTING: And then you went off to this -- turned out to be nothing, but at the time you thought might be a possible burial site, right?
JOHN ERTL: Right.
MR. BUTING: And that took up a good part of your day, sounds like?
JOHN ERTL: Correct, from about 12:30 to quarter to 6.
MR. BUTING: Okay. So did you do anything else later that evening, then?
JOHN ERTL: We went back to the garage in Chilton and continued sifting the barrels.
MR. BUTING: Now, by sifting the barrels, are you talking about using that same contraption you mentioned earlier?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Is that something you always have with you, in your van?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Yes?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Okay. Not something you brought specifically for this case?
JOHN ERTL: No.
MR. BUTING: And then the next day, November 8th, you started off back at the sheriff's department, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: We're talking about here in Chilton?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: These barrels, where were they kept?
JOHN ERTL: In the service garage behind the sheriff's department.
MR. BUTING: And when you got there, was there -- were they in any kind of container or were they just sitting out in the garage?
JOHN ERTL: When we first arrived they were in an enclosed trailer.
MR. BUTING: That's the day before?
JOHN ERTL: Right.
MR. BUTING: And was that sealed with any kind of evidence tape?
JOHN ERTL: I believe the door to the garage had been sealed with evidence tape. And the trailer had a padlock on it. I don't recall if that had evidence tape on it or not.
MR. BUTING: And there's no other door to the garage from the interior; this is a detached garage?
JOHN ERTL: Detached garage.
MR. BUTING: Okay. And the gentleman that you said was helping you was Jeremy Hawkins; is that right?
JOHN ERTL: (No verbal response.)
MR. BUTING: And to your knowledge is -- he is employed with Calumet County Sheriff's Department, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And to your knowledge, he is certainly qualified to be evidence collection specialist, right?
JOHN ERTL: I believe he presented himself as their evidence caretaker.
MR. BUTING: He is the main guy, right?
JOHN ERTL: I believe so.
MR. BUTING: Did you see him out at the scene on November 5th?
JOHN ERTL: No, I did not.
MR. BUTING: Or 6th?
JOHN ERTL: No.
MR. BUTING: All right. This fifth barrel that you examined was on the morning of Tuesday, November 8, correct?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: And the photograph, I think is still in front of you, that you discussed before, that's the -- that's a photograph you took before searching it?
JOHN ERTL: No, we didn't take that photograph.
MR. BUTING: Who took that photograph; do you know?
JOHN ERTL: I don't know.
MR. BUTING: Did you take photographs of it before you started searching?
JOHN ERTL: No.
MR. BUTING: Why not?
JOHN ERTL: Because it had been removed from where it had been, transported, and then our goal was to sift it and recover what --
(Court reporter couldn't hear.)
JOHN ERTL: Our goal there was to sift the contents. Any documentation of the barrels at the scene, that's -- that was done by somebody else.
MR. BUTING: It may or may not be the way it looked, you don't know?
JOHN ERTL: No, I don't know. I was presented this this morning and asked if that looked like the fifth barrel, and it does to me.
MR. BUTING: All right. But in terms of it -- it's -- what it looked like out there on the scene; have you seen -- have you ever seen a photograph that shows that?
JOHN ERTL: He showed me several photographs, one of them was further away and it had the wheel that was in the barrel when I saw it, because this photograph doesn't have the wheel in it.
MR. BUTING: Right.
JOHN ERTL: So I asked about the wheel. He said, oh, yeah, there's another photograph that shows the wheel. They took the wheel, out looked inside.
MR. BUTING: And that photograph shows the wheel on the ground, next to it, right?
JOHN ERTL: Right.
MR. BUTING: All right. So you were never brought to the scene of wherever that burn barrel was, yourself?
JOHN ERTL: No.
MR. BUTING: So, you never actually saw it, you know, in situ, so to speak, wherever it was located, and that's why you didn't take photographs of it?
JOHN ERTL: Well, they -- I recall that there was a burn barrel on the driveway and that's where I was told this one had been.
MR. BUTING: But you didn't go up and examine it?
JOHN ERTL: No, did not examine it.
MR. BUTING: The -- One of the things you say that you do is scene photography, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And, generally, that's supposed to be one of the first things that's done at the scene before anybody starts searching, right?
JOHN ERTL: Right.
MR. BUTING: So, for instance, had you been asked to go into Mr. Avery's residence on the night of November 5th, very first thing you would have done, before anybody looks anywhere, is take photographs, right?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: And had you been asked to go into Mr. Avery's garage first, the very first thing you would have done would be to take photographs showing exactly what it looked like, right?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: Before there's any kind of markings, or chalk circles, or anything like that, right?
JOHN ERTL: Sure.
MR. BUTING: You want to get a nice good photograph that really captures everything that's in there, all the junk that you mentioned?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And the location of all the items, right?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: And only then, after you photographed and documented the scene, do you start moving things around, collecting, whatever?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: Because once you do that, you have altered the scene?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. BUTING: And when you were called over to this burn area, behind the garage, you didn't take any photographs then either, did you? And that's because the scene had been altered before you arrived; isn't that right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And, in fact, you expressed concern at one point, to the investigators in this case, that you had been unable to make a more thorough record because you were not used for the complete scene processing; isn't that right?
MR. FALLON: Objection to the term concern; it's speculation.
MR. BUTING: All right. We'll get more specific then.
THE COURT: All right.
MR. BUTING: (By Attorney Buting)~ Mr. Ertl, showing you Exhibit No. 160, can you identify that, please.
JOHN ERTL: It's an email to and from Tom Fassbender and myself. He emailed me and I replied to him.
MR. BUTING: All right. And in this email, I don't know that we need to put it up on the ELMO, you are explaining why you did not take photographs of either the burn pit area or where the license plate vehicle was; is that right?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: And in that you -- you state, in regards to the burn pit, our involvement began with a request to use our sifting equipment; the scene had obviously been altered at that point; is that right?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: And, then, would you go on and read the next sentence, please. Read it out loud.
JOHN ERTL: I'm trying to find it; I was not following along, I was recollecting.
MR. BUTING: Second paragraph on the top there, had we.
JOHN ERTL: Had we been working any of these scenes from start to finish, there would likely have been more thorough photo records, done by us. However, under the circumstances, we were merely able to provide technical assistance rather than complete scene processing.
MR. BUTING: Okay. So, more typically, if you are called to the scene to process ev -- potential evidence, you are able to do so from start to finish, right?
JOHN ERTL: I would say the majority of cases, when we arrive at the scene, we are given over control and we take the lead.
MR. BUTING: Okay.
JOHN ERTL: And process it according to the way we would normally process.
MR. BUTING: Okay. And Mr. Fassbender didn't let you do that in this case, did he?
JOHN ERTL: In this case, I don't believe that would have been possible, due to the size of the scene.
MR. BUTING: Sure, but -- Because of the 40 acres or whatever?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: But with regard to this, Mr. Avery's residence, Mr. Fassbender didn't let you do that, right?
JOHN ERTL: He didn't request that we do that?
MR. BUTING: By the time you went into Mr. Avery's residence, it was clear someone else had already been through it, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And with regard to Mr. Avery's garage, or detached garage next to his residence, Mr. Fassbender didn't allow you to do that complete scene processing there either, did he?
MR. FALLON: Objection to the use of didn't allow. The question is -- it's improper as to --
MR. BUTING: I will rephrase.
THE COURT: Thank you.
MR. BUTING: (By Attorney Buting)~ He didn't ask you to do that?
JOHN ERTL: He did not.
MR. BUTING: Okay. And, likewise, with this burn area, by the time you arrived, it was impossible for you to do a complete scene processing because someone else had been altering it, right?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: Judge, I have a lot to go yet; we may want to take a break?
THE COURT: All right. We'll take our lunch break at this time. Members of the jury, again, do not discuss this case during your lunch hour and we'll see you after lunch.
(Jury not present.)
THE COURT: We're now outside the presence of the jury. You may be seated. I will indicate, for the record, there was a request by the defense for a side bar earlier and that was for the purpose of raising an issue as to whether or not the defense had all of the pages from this witness' report. It's my understanding the parties are going to explore that issue over the noon hour?
MR. STRANG: It's not really even an issue your Honor. I suspect that the State doesn't have the last 14 pages either, because otherwise we would. If it turns out that we both have them already, that's fine. There is no issue. I don't expect these will affect the cross-examination or that there's been any tendency to hamper the cross-examination if, in fact, we don't have -- it's just the last 14 pages of the Crime Lab evidence log form.
THE COURT: All right. And I also asked if -- I had Exhibit 89 as I was coming back in here. Along those lines, counsel, there was a question raised late last week as to whether Exhibit 89 had been admitted, I checked with the court reporter from Wednesday and he indicated toward the end of the day, I think the Court asked if all the exhibits that had been marked were to be admitted and there was no objection from the parties.
But it's -- My recollection is that this may not be the only exhibit that's been marked, but was not intended by the parties to be admitted. So I would ask, over the noon hour, if you could go over your list of exhibits and make sure we determine whether or not there were any other exhibits that had been listed as admitted but were not intended by the parties to be admitted. I think Exhibit 89 here may be one of those. We'll deal with that at the end of the day. Anything else before we break for lunch?
MR. STRANG: I think the State prepared an order for your Honor's signature on personnel records that we have requested. That order is in acceptable form to the defense.
THE COURT: All right. Let's resume at 1:15.
(Noon recess taken.)
(Jury present.)
THE COURT: At this time, Mr. Buting, you may resume your cross-examination.
MR. BUTING: Thank you, your Honor.
CROSS-EXAMINATION CONTD BY ATTORNEY BUTING:
MR. BUTING: All right. Mr. Ertl, I'm not exactly sure where we left off, but let's talk about luminol for a minute?
JOHN ERTL: All right.
MR. BUTING: Luminol is this substance that reacts to a number of different things besides just blood, right?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. BUTING: Other kinds of chemicals, you mentioned cleaning agents, bleach reacts real highly to that, very strong?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Which means very bright?
JOHN ERTL: Bright and fast, yes.
MR. BUTING: Okay. What about other kinds of things, transmission fluid perhaps, oils, things of that nature?
JOHN ERTL: I know it reacts with some metals, copper and lead in particular. Transmission fluid might have some metals ground into it, so it's possible.
MR. BUTING: Okay. Maybe it would not be as strong a reaction, maybe some -- a faint reaction, something like that?
JOHN ERTL: Perhaps.
MR. BUTING: Okay.
JOHN ERTL: I'm not sure.
MR. BUTING: And this is a garage -- Let's go to the garage floor for a minute, where you said you had a faint reaction in this little area, 3 X 4 area.
JOHN ERTL: Right.
MR. BUTING: Not a real bright, quick reaction like you get with bleach, for instance?
JOHN ERTL: Right.
MR. BUTING: And the area, then, you then sampled and tested with phenolphthalein, after that, right?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. BUTING: You turn the lights and then you used these very sensitive phenolphthalein tests to see if there's any possible blood?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: And that would be human or animal, right?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. BUTING: And that particular area, you didn't find any -- any kind of blood reaction at all?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. BUTING: But there were some other samples of blood that had been recovered earlier, as far as you could tell?
JOHN ERTL: That's what I was told.
MR. BUTING: And do you know, did you ever find out what the results of those blood -- whose blood it was or wasn't?
JOHN ERTL: No.
MR. BUTING: That comes later, not part of your responsibilities; is that right?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. BUTING: Okay. All right. Let me switch and talk with you for a few minutes about the burn pit, okay. You talked about some experience that you had being called out to the woods to look at bones or something of that nature?
JOHN ERTL: There had been a couple of burial sites and one in particular earlier that year that it involved burning.
MR. BUTING: Okay. And so you're -- you have enough experience to be able to recognize bones?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Not necessarily distinguish human bone from animal bone, but you can kind of tell what's bone and what's rock and that sort of thing?
JOHN ERTL: Yeah, I could -- maybe not all kinds of rock, but bone from say plant materials, piece of bark.
MR. BUTING: Bone from -- you mean you can distinguish bone from plant materials or bark?
JOHN ERTL: I have a -- as you pointed out, I have a background in plant biology, so I feel comfortable with plant materials versus bone, but not so comfortable distinguishing, say, some limestone versus a piece of bone.
MR. BUTING: Okay. And, you know, you are not actually a forensic anthropologist?
JOHN ERTL: No, I'm not.
MR. BUTING: Did -- To your knowledge, did Mr. Fassbender call a forensic anthropologist out to the scene of the burn pit?
JOHN ERTL: Not to my knowledge.
MR. BUTING: Or Mr. Wiegert?
JOHN ERTL: No, not to my knowledge.
MR. BUTING: Okay. Now, you talked about excavating this site a little bit. Do you know how a possible bone site is supposed to be searched by, you know, what an archaeologist or forensic archaeologist or anthropologist would do?
MR. FALLON: Objection, compound question, which is it?
MR. BUTING: (By Attorney Buting)~ Archeologist.
JOHN ERTL: I have no training in archaeology. We do excavate burial sites differently than we excavated this ash pile.
MR. BUTING: Okay. And when you do that, one of the very first things you do is make sure that you documented, with photographs, before the site has been altered, right?
JOHN ERTL: That would be the first step.
MR. BUTING: And that, in fact, you take numerous photographs, throughout the process, documenting it before, during and after, right?
JOHN ERTL: Quite often, yes.
MR. BUTING: And that you -- The proper way is to sort of establish a contamination path, let's call it, an area outside of the area that you think might be worthy of excavation, where you are allowed to walk back and forth and back and forth and not worry about contaminating anything; is that right?
JOHN ERTL: Well, that's generally true with most crime scene items.
MR. BUTING: All right.
JOHN ERTL: You want to limit the access to the site in some way.
MR. BUTING: Okay. But when it comes to excavating one of these sites where there might be a burial site, for instance?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: You divide it up into -- either with string, or something, you ideally would have four posts outlining the area with strings and then dividing it up into various squares or quadrants; are you familiar with that?
JOHN ERTL: I'm familiar with that, in my little knowledge of archaeology, I have seen that done. I have worked with forensic anthropologists at burial sites and they have not done that.
MR. BUTING: All right. But one of the things, when you do that is, you work from the outside in. In other words, from where the outer edge is, where your path is, you work your way -- the outer edges first and then you work your way into the center so that you can do the entire area?
JOHN ERTL: Well, usually with a burial site, your first goal is to define the extent of the hole. So, once you have defined the perimeter, then you work outside of that and dig down alongside of where you think the burial site actually is. And then you excavate from down and sides and underneath to the core --
MR. BUTING: Okay.
JOHN ERTL: -- to where the body would be.
MR. BUTING: Sort of outside, into the middle, right?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: Generally. And when you do recover an item, in the course of that excavation, it's important that you make note of exactly where in that -- within that perimeter area you find that bone or that item, right?
JOHN ERTL: In my past experience, we would, if the body is intact, we would locate where the head is, where the shoulders, the joint, and the hands would be, where the hips are, the knees, and the feet, just to get the orientation of the body in the grave.
MR. BUTING: Okay. Now, at this site, you didn't have a perimeter with a containment path around it, right? I mean, it was being worked on by the time you got there, right?
JOHN ERTL: Well, it wasn't a burial, per se, so it wasn't a great perimeter; there was a scooped out area of dirt with ashes.
MR. BUTING: Right.
JOHN ERTL: So the ashes was our perimeter.
MR. BUTING: Okay. But somebody would use the shovel -- you said mostly you, but sometimes others -- and dig up a portion, then bring it over to be sifted, right?
JOHN ERTL: Right.
MR. BUTING: And this area, the whole area that was excavated, was about how big?
JOHN ERTL: Probably roughly the size of this table I'm sitting at.
MR. BUTING: And nobody -- When you would bring over a shovel here or shovel there, nobody made or kept track of where exactly in that -- I guess we should identify it for the record. The area is what, maybe 5 X 4?
JOHN ERTL: 5 X 4 feet, yeah.
MR. BUTING: Okay. Nobody made or kept track of where, within that area, any particular suspected bone may have been, right?
JOHN ERTL: No.
MR. BUTING: And if any -- any suspected bone was found outside of that area, nobody made specific note of just where, outside of that area, that came from either, did they?
MR. FALLON: Objection, calls for hearsay knowledge. And it's non-specific as well in term of who, what, and where.
THE COURT: Well, as far as hearsay, I understand you to be questioning this witness -- I'm assuming he's asking the witness, based on his own knowledge. What was the remainder of your objection?
MR. FALLON: It's non-specific in terms of what was found where, when, by whom. If he's asking the witness what he may have done and what he may have documented, that's certainly appropriate. But what anyone else may have found, done, or documented is ...
THE COURT: I will ask you to rephrase the question for clarification.
MR. BUTING: (By Attorney Buting)~ All right. I guess the point here is that various items of suspected bone were brought to you to be sifted. I mean various areas of dirt, or whatever, were brought to you to be sifted, and then suspected bone fragments were found, right?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: But to your knowledge, neither you nor anyone else would specifically identify where in this area that particular piece of bone came from?
JOHN ERTL: No. Everything that was collected in this area was placed together in a box.
MR. BUTING: This area being that 4 X 5 feet ...
JOHN ERTL: 4 X 5 foot ash pile was placed together in a box, just as we had done with the burn barrels.
MR. BUTING: And did you find anything -- Did you sift anything outside of that pit area, on the grass, or farther over above where the dog was in that picture, on the mound, or anything like that?
JOHN ERTL: No, we were restricted to the ash pile.
MR. BUTING: Okay. And you just worked on it that one evening?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: You didn't come back the next day to do any further work?
JOHN ERTL: No, that was the last day I was there.
MR. BUTING: And that was done, actually, at night, you said?
JOHN ERTL: Well, we worked up until it got dark.
MR. BUTING: Was it daylight when you got there?
JOHN ERTL: It was approximately from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
MR. BUTING: Okay. So it was daylight for part of it and then you kept working until it got too dark?
JOHN ERTL: Got too dark.
MR. BUTING: And you went walking around the -- during your -- your -- how many days was it there, three days, four days?
JOHN ERTL: Saturday, and came back for Sunday, Monday, Tuesday.
MR. BUTING: Okay. So during your four days there, you walked around different areas and looked at different buildings on the 40 acre property, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Testified to that. Did Mr. Fassbender or Mr. Wiegert ever escort you to a aluminum smelter on the property?
JOHN ERTL: No.
MR. BUTING: You never saw the smelter on the property at all, did you?
JOHN ERTL: No, I didn't.
MR. BUTING: And you are the one who has the experience finding bones, right?
JOHN ERTL: I have some, yes.
MR. BUTING: So if somebody had brought you over to the smelter, you would have been able to look carefully, with your experience, to see whether there was any evidence, fragments of bones, or whatever, in or around that smelter area, couldn't you?
JOHN ERTL: I don't know much about aluminum smelters. If there were something to look at, I could have looked at it.
MR. BUTING: Okay. But you did not, because no one escorted you there, no one showed you the smelter?
JOHN ERTL: I didn't know anything about an aluminum smelter.
MR. BUTING: What about a big wood furnace?
JOHN ERTL: No, I don't know anything about that.
MR. BUTING: Never looked inside of a wood furnace that was on the property, to see if there was evidence of bone, or --
JOHN ERTL: No, I did not.
MR. BUTING: -- zippers, pulls, anything like that?
JOHN ERTL: No.
MR. BUTING: All right. Thank you very much, sir.
THE COURT: Any redirect?
MR. FALLON: Yes, Judge. Thank you.
REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY ATTORNEY FALLON:
MR. FALLON: Couple of points, Mr. Ertl. First of off -- First all -- First of all, I would like to ask you about this question, relative to the transportation of the SUV. Counsel asked you if you could have remained and helped with other searches, instead of going with the vehicle to Madison. What is the protocol, what is the recommended procedure for the Crime Lab analyst when there are two of you there with a critical piece of evidence like the SUV?
JOHN ERTL: Well, I was asked if we could get the vehicle back to the laboratory and asked to see if I could expedite getting work done on it, prior to Monday morning.
MR. FALLON: Who asked you to do that?
JOHN ERTL: It was either Investigator Wiegert or Special Agent Fassbender.
MR. FALLON: All right. Now, in terms of transportation of a key piece of evidence like that, is there a concern on the part of the analyst that the evidence be transported safely?
JOHN ERTL: Well, definitely. I wanted it enclosed. It is now in my custody. We could have turned it over to Calumet County and they could have taken custody and dealt with getting to it to the laboratory.
MR. FALLON: But you took control of the SUV, correct?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. FALLON: All right. And to ensure that it was safely transported to the Crime Lab, without incident, took two of you to do it?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. FALLON: All right. Now, counsel asked you a couple of hypotheticals about the presence of a certain Toyota key and the possibility of DNA on that key. Well, Mr. Ertl, we have person number one who's the owner of the key; person number two who does not own the key, but at some point obtains possession of the key. And during the course of obtaining possession of the key, actively bleeds on the key, wipes the bleed off the key.
It's not entirely unexpected that you would find the DNA profile of the person who possessed the key and who wiped the blood off the key, that's not an unusual finding, would it not?
JOHN ERTL: Well, in that situation, you would have two activities promoting finding the second person rather than the first person. If you bleed on the key, now you are supplying a large quantity of your own DNA. And even if the other person's DNA is there, you may mask them because now you have actual bodily fluids rather than stray skin cells.
So there's more DNA in blood than I would expect to find from something that had been touched. So you could cover over the other DNA. And if you then wiped it off, now you are physically removing potentially all the DNA that's present, the first person and the second person.
MR. FALLON: And if the second person, not the original owner of the key, had possession of that key for four days, one would expect that you are most likely going to find the profile of the person who last possessed the key; isn't that true?
JOHN ERTL: As you explained it, I would expect, yes, to find the second persons.
MR. FALLON: And it would not be unusual at all to find no other DNA profile on that key, would it?
JOHN ERTL: No, that would be not unusual.
MR. FALLON: In fact, the likelihood of that occurring is enhanced by the fact that person number two actually had possession of the key for say four days at a minimum?
JOHN ERTL: The longer the time you would expect more contact more possibility for DNA being deposited.
MR. FALLON: Now, let's talk a little bit about this contamination issue. The fact that certain bits of evidence can become "contaminated", is not all that unusual is it?
JOHN ERTL: The fact that it can happen?
MR. FALLON: Yes.
JOHN ERTL: It is not unusual and it is expected and we take precautions to prevent that.
MR. FALLON: And, as a matter fact, contamination can occur, as counsel said, during the collection of the evidence, during the transport of the evidence, and during the analysis of the evidence, as I understood your answer; is that correct?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. FALLON: All right. Well, it's also possible that contamination of a crime scene could occur before law enforcement even arrives?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. FALLON: And, as a matter of fact, in your experience, it's not unusual at all for perpetrators of crimes to take efforts to alter crime scenes, is it?
JOHN ERTL: That's quite common to -- to see attempts being made to clean up.
MR. FALLON: All right. And what types of efforts have you seen certain suspects undertake to clean up, as you say, a crime scene?
MR. BUTING: Objection, now we're getting too far afield of this case.
MR. FALLON: I disagree heartily, counsel went down this road, we're entitled to respond.
THE COURT: I'll give you a little latitude.
MR. FALLON: (By Attorney Fallon)~ Continue.
JOHN ERTL: I have seen cases where it was a shooting in a carpeted area, we saw some of the blood spatter pattern we talked about previously, up on the ceiling, on some of the furniture. And there was absolutely no apparent blood on the carpeting. So we saw a fine, hard to see mist of blood. And you would expect to see, then, something on the carpeting, if someone had been shot there. There was a Rug Doctor sitting next to it, this area. They had rented the Rug Doctor and shampooed the carpet. When we ripped up the carpet, a large blood pool, on the floor under the carpeting, had soaked into the padding. So they had obviously attempted to clean the blood pool from the shooting.
MR. FALLON: And is it possible to clean up blood with certain reagents such as bleach?
JOHN ERTL: Yes. Bleach is very effective. We use bleach in the laboratory to clean our work areas. It actually destroys DNA. Destroys the blood. It decontaminates it. It's very useful for that.
MR. FALLON: All right. Now, another thing about this contamination issue, just so we're clear; does contamination transform one person's DNA profile into that of another?
JOHN ERTL: It cannot change a DNA profile. It can hide a DNA profile, though.
MR. FALLON: So what you would have, then, is a mixture?
JOHN ERTL: You could have a mixture, or you could fail to see the first person, if the second person deposited a much greater quantity of DNA.
MR. FALLON: But it's still interpretable, is it not?
JOHN ERTL: Yeah, you would see DNA types and you would be able to interpret them.
MR. FALLON: So, I take it it's still possible, then, to have reliable findings, not withstanding that type of contamination?
JOHN ERTL: It's possible.
MR. FALLON: Now, returning, again, to the question counsel asked about actively bleeding; if a suspect was actively bleeding and entered a vehicle, you would expect to find an impact bloodstain, would you not; that would not be uncommon?
JOHN ERTL: If they were actively bleeding and blood was dripping from them, then an impact stain would be the blood falling off of the person and gravity pulling it to the floor and hitting, that would be the impact.
MR. FALLON: All right. And what is a contact stain?
JOHN ERTL: That's where I'm bleeding, have blood on an item, and the item touches another item. And now I leave some blood on the second item.
MR. FALLON: And you would expect to find that as well, if a person was actively bleeding and had been in a particular vehicle that was -- that is now undergoing an examination?
JOHN ERTL: If they had touched something with a bloodied up hand or whatever, then you would expect some transfer of blood.
MR. FALLON: Even if it was just a cut on the finger?
JOHN ERTL: Sure.
MR. FALLON: Is it possible -- Well, before I get there, what is -- are you familiar with a phrase called a transfer stain?
JOHN ERTL: Well, that's a transfer of blood from one item to another --
MR. FALLON: So --
JOHN ERTL: -- by contact.
MR. FALLON: -- you are thinking that contact and transfer is one in the same concept?
JOHN ERTL: Yes. And I am not a blood spatter pattern expert. I have just -- I have been to some training. I am able to recognize it when I see it, but I don't interpret it. So I don't know all the specific jargon about swipes and wipes; and contacts and transfers; high impact, immediate impact, and low impact castoff. I'm familiar with the terms, but I couldn't necessarily tell you that that's a transfer not a contact, or a swipe not a wipe.
MR. FALLON: Well, returning, again, to our example of the person one and person number two and person one being the owner of the key and person two being the last one to possess the key. Well, if person number two had been actively bleeding, entered a vehicle holding the ignition key in their right hand and then attempted to start the vehicle, it would not be unusual at all to find a contact stain near the ignition in that vehicle?
MR. BUTING: Objection to the characterization of not unusual. There's no factual distinction as to how that would occur.
THE COURT: I will sustain the objection based on the form of the question.
MR. FALLON: (By Attorney Fallon)~ Would you expect to find a contact stain on the ignition?
JOHN ERTL: If the person were bleeding with their right hand --
MR. FALLON: A cut on the --
JOHN ERTL: -- operating a key with the right hand and trying to start the ignition, I wouldn't think it would be unusual at all to find blood on the key and on the ignition.
(Court reporter couldn't hear.)
JOHN ERTL: And on the ignition.
MR. FALLON: Now, counsel asked you a series of questions and I want to talk a little bit more about this blood spatter issue. You can have a crime scene, and let's just take something like a stabbing, in which there was blood at the scene; are you always going to find evidence of a blood spatter stain?
JOHN ERTL: No, it would depend on circumstances?
MR. FALLON: What types of circumstances?
JOHN ERTL: I can think of a case, not too long ago, where a woman had been stabbed in her bed and there was, you know, the blankets and the comforter over her and was stabbed through that, repeatedly, and yet there was no evidence of blood in the room, other than bleeding out of her.
And the idea was that the knife going through the bedding and then being pulled out again, it wiped off the blood. It went in, came out, came out clean. And so there was no chance for the blood to fly off the knife and end up on the ceiling or on the floor. So it was a very clean scene. All the blood was contained just to the bedding and to the victim and under the sheets.
MR. FALLON: And if you wanted to further cover up the crime, then you could certainly burn all the bedding, couldn't you?
JOHN ERTL: Certainly.
MR. FALLON: So in effect, then, it is possible to clean up a crime scene?
JOHN ERTL: Most certainly. Most crime scenes do get cleaned up and people continue to live in them, the houses or whatever.
MR. FALLON: But it would be -- Is it possible, based on your training and experience, for instance, to have a pool of blood and, say, on a garage floor, have it cleaned up to such an extent that you would not get a reaction to a phenolphthalein test?
JOHN ERTL: Well, knowing what I know, I could probably do it. Bleach would be a good thing, some sort of peroxide would be a good way to get rid of the red color. The bleach would destroy the blood and the DNA.
MR. FALLON: So it's possible?
JOHN ERTL: It's possible, yes.
MR. FALLON: Your witness.
THE COURT: Mr. Buting.
MR. BUTING: Sure.
RECROSS-EXAMINATION BY ATTORNEY BUTING:
MR. BUTING: This other case you mentioned, where the gentleman -- find it on my notes for a second, please. Yeah, where there was a shooting, body on the carpet or something and you were surprised that there was no evidence of blood on the carpet?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: But that was explained because the Rug Doctor Was there, right?
JOHN ERTL: Right.
MR. BUTING: But there was blood on the ceiling.
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: And blood on the wall?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And when you rip up the carpet, there's a pool of blood underneath the carpet, right?
JOHN ERTL: That's right.
MR. BUTING: So cleaning a carpet, blood soaks through fabrics pretty well, doesn't it?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: So, in that instance, whatever the gentleman or defendant did, was not good enough. He didn't rip up the carpet and clean the pad underneath it, right?
JOHN ERTL: Right.
MR. BUTING: Now, in this case, are you aware that they ripped all the carpet out and the pad out of Mr. Avery's house?
JOHN ERTL: I didn't know that.
MR. BUTING: Okay. So you don't know what's -- whether the carpet and the pad and all that was tested for blood in his house or not?
JOHN ERTL: I don't know.
MR. BUTING: Okay. Well, we'll get to that later. But in any event, you did not see any blood spatter on his ceiling, right?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. BUTING: Or on the walls of the bedroom?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. BUTING: And the walls are paneling, right?
JOHN ERTL: I believe so.
MR. BUTING: Are you aware that they ripped the paneling out of -- off the walls and took all that out to the Crime Lab too?
JOHN ERTL: No, I wasn't aware of that either.
MR. BUTING: That came later in the case and you weren't involved in that; is that right?
JOHN ERTL: Right.
MR. BUTING: Okay. You also told us a story about the guy who apparently stabbed some woman on the mattress and there was no cast off because he was stabbing her through the bedding, right?
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: In other words blankets and comforter on top of the body as it's being stabbed --
JOHN ERTL: Correct.
MR. BUTING: -- right? But -- And so in that instance, there wasn't cast off blood that would hit the ceiling, or walls, or other objects in the room; is that what you are saying?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. BUTING: But, I assume the person did bleed down into the mattress, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And there was a blood soaked mattress in that case, wasn't there?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And Mr. Fallon asked you if someone would be able to get rid of that evidence in that instance by burning the bedding, right?
JOHN ERTL: That's correct.
MR. BUTING: Any evidence that a mattress was burned in this case?
JOHN ERTL: Not that I recall.
MR. BUTING: Did you see any bed springs in the burn pit?
JOHN ERTL: No.
MR. BUTING: Or in the burn barrel?
JOHN ERTL: No.
MR. BUTING: In fact, when you went to the Avery's bedroom there was a mattress there, wasn't there?
JOHN ERTL: There was.
MR. BUTING: And a box spring?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: And there was no bloodstain on it was there?
JOHN ERTL: No, there wasn't.
MR. BUTING: Are you familiar with any of the studies of the transfer of trace DNA from one's fingers to objects they pick up?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: Are you familiar with Dr. Lee's reports, study?
JOHN ERTL: Not in particular.
MR. BUTING: Okay. Trace isn't really your specialty?
JOHN ERTL: No.
MR. BUTING: So you are not aware of whether they have done tests that have -- that have determined what the likelihood is of the person number one's DNA still being on it when person number two handles it; is that right?
JOHN ERTL: I do know that it varies from person to person, how much DNA you deposit on things.
MR. BUTING: Okay. But, in fact, when using the hypothetical Mr. Fallon had, person number two is handling the key after person number one, the more common finding would be two people's DNA, wouldn't it?
JOHN ERTL: If they were each just handling.
MR. BUTING: Okay. Any evidence of blood on the key in this case, that you are aware of?
JOHN ERTL: I know nothing of the key; I didn't ever see the key.
MR. BUTING: Okay. And you said you were looking for blood, but you knew this was -- by then, by the time you went into the house, you knew that there was a Toyota RAV4 that had been seized and taken to the Crime Lab, right?
JOHN ERTL: Yes.
MR. BUTING: So if you had walked in that bedroom and seen, right in plain view, a car key that looked like a Toyota car key, you would have made note of that, wouldn't you?
MR. FALLON: Objection, beyond the scope of redirect.
MR. BUTING: You talked about the key.
MR. FALLON: Not in that context.
THE COURT: I'm going to sustain the objection.
MR. BUTING: All right.
THE COURT: I think that question has already been asked and answered, as well.
MR. BUTING: Okay. That's all I have. Thank you, sir.
THE COURT: All right. The witness is excused. Mr. Fallon, you can call the next witness.
MR. FALLON: We will move Exhibit 156 into evidence, please.
THE COURT: Any objection?
MR. BUTING: I'm sorry, which one is that -- I have no objection to that. And I would move Exhibit 159, 160 in as well.
MR. FALLON: 159 is the statement of qualifications.
MR. BUTING: Correct.
MR. FALLON: And 160 was the emails. I don't have any objection.
THE COURT: All right. Those exhibits are all admitted.
Jurors, if you want to stand up and stretch a minute before we hear our next witness, you may. And those of you in the audience, if you wish, you may.