Blood Drops Inconclusive, Expert Says

Spatters on Bruce Lisker's shoes and clothing did not prove he killed his 
mother in 1985, the forensics witness tells hearing.

By Scott Glover and Matt Lait
Times Staff Writers

December 6, 2005

A forensic expert who testified for the prosecution at the 1985 murder trial 
of Bruce Lisker said Monday that blood spattered on Lisker's shoes and 
clothing did not prove he killed his mother and that a state appellate 
court mischaracterized his testimony by saying it did.

"I could not reach that conclusion," Ronald R. Linhart testified during 
a hearing on Lisker's habeas corpus case in U.S. District Court in Los 
Angeles.

Linhart was called to the stand by lawyers for the California attorney 
general's office, who are defending Lisker's conviction, in an effort 
to show that blood droplets on Lisker's shoes and clothing were inconsistent with 
his stated actions on the day of the March 10, 1983, slaying.

Lisker told police he found his mother beaten, stabbed and bloodied in the 
entry hall of the family's Sherman Oaks home. He said he knelt beside her, 
hugged and comforted her, and pulled two steak knives from her back.

Never mentioning Lisker by name, Deputy Atty. Gen. John Yang offered 
several "hypothetical" scenarios that appeared to be drawn from Lisker's 
statement to police. After each scenario, he asked Linhart if such actions 
would account for tiny blood droplets on Lisker's shoes and the cuff of his shirt.

Each time, Linhart replied, "No."

On cross-examination, however, Lisker's attorney, Vicki Podberesky, offered 
several other "hypotheticals" that were also consistent with Lisker's 
statements to police. Linhart, a blood expert, conceded that each one provided a 
possible explanation for how Lisker got blood on his shoes and clothing.

At one point, Podberesky asked Linhart if the blood evidence in the case 
proved that Lisker killed his mother.

"I would make no such conclusion based on the evidence I examined," he 
said.

Podberesky then read from a 1988 appellate court decision that upheld 
Lisker's conviction. The decision stated that Linhart determined that Lisker got 
blood on his clothing "at the moment when his mother suffered a blunt 
force injury."

She asked Linhart if that was an accurate summary of his findings. "No. I 
could not reach that conclusion," he said.

Linhart's testimony came on the third day of an evidentiary hearing before 
U.S. Magistrate Judge Ralph Zarefsky. Lisker's attorneys rested their 
case Monday after testimony from an internal affairs sergeant who sharply 
criticized the work of the original detective in the case and accused LAPD superiors 
of ordering him to shut down his own probe of the matter after he 
uncovered evidence that cast doubt on Lisker's guilt.

The state's attorneys declined to cross-examine the sergeant and 
instead asked the judge to exclude his testimony on a number of legal grounds. 
The judge denied the request. 

Before calling Linhart to the stand, state attorneys sought to offer a 
possible explanation for a bloody shoeprint found at the crime scene that a 
prosecutor said was Lisker's during his trial, but was recently 
determined to have been made by someone else's shoes.

Two Los Angeles police officers testified that it was possible that they 
traipsed through blood and left the print, although they were responsible for 
securing the crime scene and said they were careful not to contaminate 
the evidence.

The shoeprint evidence is a key aspect of Lisker's effort to overturn 
his conviction because it suggests that another assailant may have been 
responsible for killing his 66-year-old mother, Dorka. The mystery print, found in 
a bathroom, is similar in "size and dimension" to a bruise on the victim's head, 
according to an analysis by an LAPD criminalist earlier this year.

The analyst, Ronald J. Raquel, testified last week that the injury on the 
victim's head was a shoe impression that had similar characteristics to 
the bloody shoeprint in the bathroom. 

The state's attorneys have suggested that the bruise on the head was 
made by an object other than a shoe. On Monday, they tried to undermine the 
significance of the shoeprint in the bathroom with the two former 
patrol officers.

Greg Derousseau, now an LAPD detective, said he "probably" stepped in 
blood, but he couldn't be sure. Nor did he know if he left a print at the 
scene, he said. George Prado, who now works for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's 
Department, said it was "possible" he left a print but "possible" he 
did not. 

Under cross-examination, both officers denied stepping on Dorka
Lisker's head. When they looked at photos of the bathroom print, neither could 
identify it as having come from the sole of their shoes.