View Full Version : Poisoned Marines Wife Freed
Defender968
04-20-2008, 09:28
This seems very sketchy to me, sounds like she's getting off on a technicality, I'd love to look at all the merits of this case. 23 year olds don't just drop dead. They initially ruled it a heart attack; again that would be unusual unless he had been using some type of drugs. Then they found the arsenic, at 1020 times the normal level.
I hope they take another look at trying this case because that young man deserves justice and this isn't it, IMHO.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MARINE_WIDOW?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-04-17-22-07-52
Apr 18, 7:30 PM EDT
Widow cleared of Marine's death criticizes prosecutors
By ALLISON HOFFMAN
Associated Press Writer
SAN DIEGO (AP) -- A woman who spent more than two years in jail before she was cleared of killing her Marine husband with arsenic questioned Friday how prosecutors could sleep at night, now knowing that new tests showed no traces of poison.
Cynthia Sommer, 34, said she barely slept herself on her first night of freedom after a San Diego Superior Court judge Thursday dismissed charges that she poisoned her husband in 2002.
She was convicted of first-degree murder in January 2007 after initial tests of Sgt. Todd Sommer's liver showed levels of arsenic 1,020 times above normal.
But prosecutors found no traces of poison in previously untested tissue as they prepared for a second trial. A judge had ordered a new trial in November after finding she had ineffective representation from her former attorney.
At her trial, prosecutors argued that Sommer used her husband's life insurance to pay for breast implants and pursue a more luxurious lifestyle.
With no proof that Sommer was the source of the arsenic detected in her husband's liver, the government relied heavily on circumstantial evidence of Sommer's financial debt and later spending sprees to show that she had a motive to kill her 23-year-old husband.
Sommer criticized prosecutors for questioning her behavior after her husband's death, saying, "I did what I did."
She was set free within hours of the judge's ruling and emerged from the Las Colinas Detention Facility in suburban Santee.
"The only question I have for (prosecutors) is how they sleep at night?" Sommer said.
Her attorney, Allen Bloom, said he felt the evidence was contaminated. "We've said that all along," he told reporters outside the courthouse.
Bloom accused the district attorney of "gross negligence."
San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis defended her handling of the case Friday, saying that justice was served and that her office acted appropriately.
"We did what we were supposed to do," Dumanis told KFMB-TV. "We're all looking backwards now and second-guessing everything."
A recently retained government expert speculated that the earlier samples were contaminated, prosecutors wrote in a motion filed in court. The expert said he found the initial results "very puzzling" and "physiologically improbable."
Todd Sommer was in top physical condition when he collapsed and died Feb. 18, 2002, at the couple's home on the Marine Corps' Miramar base in San Diego. His death was initially ruled a heart attack.
Dumanis said Thursday there was no proof of contamination but offered no other explanation. She said she didn't know how the tissue may have been contaminated.
"We had an expert who said it was arsenic and no reason to doubt that evidence," Dumanis said. "The bottom line was, 'Was there arsenic in Mr. Sommer causing his death?' Our results showed that there was."
Sommer said she wasn't sure what she would do now that she was out of jail. She was looking forward to seeing her four children, ages 8 to 16.
"It's already been an incredible day. I can't wait to finish it," she said.
© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights
Is that the same chic that got a boob job with the insurance money?
Defender968
04-20-2008, 20:20
The very same, IIRC she went out slept with several guys right after her husband died, including one they proved she had begun trying to hook up with before her husband died.
Kyobanim
04-21-2008, 03:13
I guess she's guilty because she has loose morals. Who cares about evidence.
Did you ever think the marine might not have been the best person in the world either?
Back in 1994...there was a fellow named Fred Zain that gave expert testimony on blood tests. Mr. Zain, it seems, regularly fabricated or altered evidence. He lied about his qualifications under oath.
You can read more HERE (http://www.corpus-delicti.com/zain_082194.html)
Science is only as good as the researcher. Sometimes, researchers are mistaken. Occasionally, they lie. Which seems to me to be a good reason to avoid placing total, unquestioning faith in such tests.
As for young men dying young...a friend of mine had a son who came back from Iraq about a year ago. The young man felt tired and took a nap. And he simply died. My friend and his wife haven't really recovered; perhaps parents never get over such things.
In addition, a couple of my cousins...both in their fifties...died rather suddenly. One of deep vein thrombosis (too much sitting at a desk without moving for too long). The other felt tired, took a nap (dangerous things, those naps), and never woke up. It seems he had an undiagnosed heart condition.
So...I guess I would be cautious about judging the young woman too harshly. Sometimes, the good die young for no good reason. And occassionally, we really don't know why.
Defender968
04-21-2008, 19:54
I guess she's guilty because she has loose morals. Who cares about evidence.
Did you ever think the marine might not have been the best person in the world either?
Not judging the marine one way or the other. As to evidence I would trust the tests done at the time of autopsy much more than a test done on some tissue that is reportedly the deceased 2 years later. Not to mention a detective and the DA were pretty certain it was murder and then managed to convince not only a grand jury but the trial judge, and 12 jurors that she killed her husband. I don't have all the answers on the evidence as I wasn’t part of the case, but I'm guessing it was more than, well folks we have just this one test which shows arsenic she's, got to be guilty, juries aren’t that easy to convince, least not in my experience. If that were the case and they threw the case out on the merits I wouldn't have a problem. The issue as I read it is they're throwing the case out for her having a less than stellar defense attorney, and that is a whole different ball of wax that's a technicality and has nothing to do with innocence or guilt, of course she, her lawyer and her press agent will try to spin it so she's the victim, why because she'll announce her law suit shortly.
Back in 1994...there was a fellow named Fred Zain that gave expert testimony on blood tests. Mr. Zain, it seems, regularly fabricated or altered evidence. He lied about his qualifications under oath.
You can read more HERE (http://www.corpus-delicti.com/zain_082194.html)
Science is only as good as the researcher. Sometimes, researchers are mistaken. Occasionally, they lie. Which seems to me to be a good reason to avoid placing total, unquestioning faith in such tests.
As for young men dying young...a friend of mine had a son who came back from Iraq about a year ago. The young man felt tired and took a nap. And he simply died. My friend and his wife haven't really recovered; perhaps parents never get over such things.
In addition, a couple of my cousins...both in their fifties...died rather suddenly. One of deep vein thrombosis (too much sitting at a desk without moving for too long). The other felt tired, took a nap (dangerous things, those naps), and never woke up. It seems he had an undiagnosed heart condition.
So...I guess I would be cautious about judging the young woman too harshly. Sometimes, the good die young for no good reason. And occassionally, we really don't know why.
I do not believe in placing total unquestioning faith in such tests, however if due diligence was done, and they tested not only the liver, but also the hair, (depending on how long they believed the arsenic had been given to the young Marine) and possibly the bones, and all three came back positive for arsenic, which I would hope they would have done, then those tests are very damming, one contaminated specimen I might buy, unlikely but possible, two or three, I'm not buying period.
While on occasion young people do die, they rarely die for no reason. I had a good friend die at the age of 22, she got pneumonia and drowned (fluid in her lungs), but she was sick her folks just didn't know how sick, as for people feeling tired and then dying, yes it does happen but with a thorough autopsy from a competent medical examiner they usually figure out why. I will admit that on occasion young people do die from unspecific and undeterminable causes, however I would venture to say, at least in my experience, that many fewer healthy 20 somethings die for no reason than 20 somethings who are killed by something specific and determinable, and more times than not it's caused by another human. If the leg work is done 99 times out of 100 you'll find out why, be in a blood clot, poisoning, or a GSW to the head.
As an LEO I have yet to see a 20 something just die of natural causes, unless you consider the 400 lb 26 year old who died after a botched stomach stapling surgery natural causes and I wouldn't. As I said before a very seasoned detective once told me when I was first on the job, young people usually don't just die.
The way she behaved as well as the test(s) would lead me to believe there is a strong probability of guilt, and I don't have all the evidence in the case, but I also don’t believe in coincidences (and I do trust the system, it's not perfect but it also slants things in the favor of the accused very much so.) I've seen far more guilty go free than innocent people go to jail. And of course if you believe all the folks in prison who claim they’re innocent then we'd need no jails.
Of course in my line of work I suspect the worst of people, but I also usually have my suspicions confirmed by their actions.
Kyobanim
04-22-2008, 10:03
Read the whole article here: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/24254002
After jurors heard the scientific evidence and stories about her frolicking with her husband’s Marine buddies on the night of his funeral, Sommer was convicted of first-degree murder last year and sentenced to life in prison.
But last Thursday, after Sommer had served 876 days, San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis unexpectedly moved to dismiss the murder charges.
Sommer was suddenly a free woman.
“I’m overwhelmed with emotion,” Sommer said. “I can’t describe being in jail one day, one minute actually, and being out the next.”
The motion to vacate the conviction, Dumanis said, was prompted by overlooked evidence and additional scientific analysis that challenged the validity of the prosecution’s original case that Sommer used arsenic to kill her husband.
Last December, a judge granted Sommer’s request for a new trial based on the contention that her former attorney, Robert Udell, made several legal mistakes that might have prejudiced jurors
Defender968
04-22-2008, 15:09
Read the whole article here: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/24254002
Read the new article, interesting verbage,
additional scientific analysis that challenged the validity of the prosecution’s original case that Sommer used arsenic to kill her husband
What that says to me is the defense has proved that a reasonable doubt exists to her guilt, that doesn't mean she's not guilty, just that the prosecution didn't meet their burden of proof with the inclusion of the new evidence.
Kyobanim
04-22-2008, 16:51
What the quoted line says to me is there was a problem with the evidence.
What this whole thing says to me is the prosecution should have spent more time worrying about real evidence instead of playing up her social activities. The object of a trial is to find the truth, not a path to re-election on someone's civil liberties.
What that says to me is the defense has proved that a reasonable doubt exists to her guilt, that doesn't mean she's not guilty, just that the prosecution didn't meet their burden of proof with the inclusion of the new evidence.This isn't Scotland...a judge or jury has two options...Guilty or Not Guilty...there is not a "Not Proven" option in US Jurisprudence...
I think what he was trying to say was that although a jury can find someone "not guilty", it doesn't necessarily mean they did not commit the crime. It just means the prosecution did not prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt (i.e., OJ).
I've seen people do some truly bizarre things because of their grief and hesitate to use that as any sort of moral compass. Or it could be the marriage was already in the shitter and she had moved on long ago. The problem is, even if arsenic was in his system, they had nothing to show she was the one who put it there.
I would rather see them wait twenty years and get the prosecution right than press forward with a half-ass case and lose it, never to be tried again. As the sign above my old department's homicide office said, "We Work For God".
Defender968
04-22-2008, 20:04
True and the 12 jurors found her guilty and the judge did not find the verdict a problem, her new lawyers have argued that her original counsel failed in his duties, and they granted a new trial last year. Now with this "new" evidence" the DA has dismissed the charges as it "challenged" the validity of the prosecution's case. I don't know the extent of how it challenged the prosecution's case, but what it sounds like is the DA in the case has some egg on her face for not testing this "new" sample. I don't know what the sample is, what part of the body it came from or how the new scientific analysis differed from the old I'm not a scientist I'm just a cop who has an opinion based on what info I've read, my experiences, and a feeling in my gut.
What I do know is the initial tests of the liver and kidney showed arsenic, I also know that arsenic poisoning is hard to diagnose, and I know that healthy 23 year olds rarely die of natural causes. I'm no lawyer, nor do I claim to be an expert on US law, again I'm just a cop who thinks this smells fishy, her behavior from what I recall was not just after he died, her way of morning as she now claims, it was shown IIRC that she had a consult for the breast implants (that they could not afford before the victims death) notice that's before he died. Does this make her a murderer, no, but it does start to paint a picture, and it does give her motive. They have dismissed the charges, that doesn't mean they can't refile them later if they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she is guilty.
If she truly is innocent then I'm glad she's not in prison, but the cynical cop in me doubts that's the truth in this case. That’s just my .02.
The way she behaved as well as the test(s) would lead me to believe there is a strong probability of guilt, and I don't have all the evidence in the case, but I also don’t believe in coincidences (and I do trust the system, it's not perfect but it also slants things in the favor of the accused very much so.) I've seen far more guilty go free than innocent people go to jail. And of course if you believe all the folks in prison who claim they’re innocent then we'd need no jails.
Of course in my line of work I suspect the worst of people, but I also usually have my suspicions confirmed by their actions.
I respect your experience - I have no background in such things. Still, I notice:
According to court documents, prosecutors learned last month that some of Todd Sommer’s untested tissue samples had been stored at San Diego Naval Medical Center. They were tested this month in Quebec and no arsenic was found and, as a result, contamination in previous tissue samples was possible.
(From the article, as linked by Kyobanim)
So, we have two sets of samples, one that shows arsenic, and one that doesn't. I see three possibilities:
Option One: Set 1 (with arsenic) is valid. Set 2 (without arsenic) is valid. That combination doesn't make sense.
Option Two: Set 1 (with arsenic) is contaminated, hence invalid). Set 2 (without arsenic) is valid. Hence, the murder did not occur.
Option Three: Set 1 (with arsenic) is valid. Set 2 (without arsenic) actually has arsenic, but the technician made an error and missed the poison.
Option 1: As I mention, this just doesn't make sense. How could 1 sample have it, and another not have it?
Option 2: The widow really isn't guilty.
Option 3: If I was the technician in a high-profile case, I think I would be extra careful. My lab procedure would be by-the-book.
You mention that you trust the system. I guess I see the system as merely a group of ordinary people. And people make mistakes. Sometimes they get lazy. Sometimes they take shortcuts, or have bad attitudes. Sometimes they just have bad days.
Now, let's look at those jurors. I've seen lots of people who can't make heads or tails of compound interest. I'd bet you've seen a great many who can't understand the concept of legal elements required to constitute a criminal offense. Are those jurors really capable of evaluating the evidence? I wonder. Your suggestion that many guilty people go free hints that we may be in agreement. At the least, if a guilty person is set free by a jury, then surely the converse can also occur.
Anyway, my inflation adjusted 2 cents worth...
What I do know is the initial tests of the liver and kidney showed arsenic, I also know that arsenic poisoning is hard to diagnose, and I know that healthy 23 year olds rarely die of natural causes.
Hmm. I have a question. How hard is it to get arsenic without creating a really obvious paper trail?
One could go to a lab supply house, I suppose; but that would be rather high-profile, I would think. Surely arsenic isn't easy to obtain?
The Reaper
04-22-2008, 20:26
Hmm. I have a question. How hard is it to get arsenic without creating a really obvious paper trail?
One could go to a lab supply house, I suppose; but that would be rather high-profile, I would think. Surely arsenic isn't easy to obtain?
Let's deal with that as a rhetorical question, we do not need a bunch of posts explaining exactly how to anonymously obtain or manufacture large quantities of lethal poisons posted here.
TR
Hmm. I have a question. How hard is it to get arsenic without creating a really obvious paper trail?Check here...
http://water.usgs.gov/nawqa/trace/arsenic/
The company I work for has several aresnic mitigation projects in the mill...in places where there was hard rock mining, it is fairly prevalent in the ground water and in some cases, surface water...there is evidence that as many as 56 million Americans drink water with unsafe levels of arsenic...
Arsenic in water can be a by-product of agricultural activity, as well, in addition to waste disposal facilities...and of course, decks treated with CCA (copper chromated arsenate) were pretty prevalent until recently...he could have grown up in a house with a deck made from lumber treated with CCA and been exposed to it all his life...
Arsenic was available in the geochemistry lab at the college where I completed my undergraduate schooling...
Given the prevalence of CCA in treated lumber, I'm not sure concentration of the metal in organ tissue is necessarily indicative of intentional poisoning...I wouldn't rule it out, either. But arsenic is all around us...and IIRC, towns named "Sweetwater" tend to have higher arsenic levels than others...FWIW...
Thank you, Sir. The issue of water contamination (as well as other materials) was one I had not considered. It sounds as if it could increase the possibility of false positives in the tests.
Defender968
04-23-2008, 06:40
I respect your experience - I have no background in such things. Still, I notice:
According to court documents, prosecutors learned last month that some of Todd Sommer’s untested tissue samples had been stored at San Diego Naval Medical Center. They were tested this month in Quebec and no arsenic was found and, as a result, contamination in previous tissue samples was possible.
(From the article, as linked by Kyobanim)
So, we have two sets of samples, one that shows arsenic, and one that doesn't. I see three possibilities:
Option One: Set 1 (with arsenic) is valid. Set 2 (without arsenic) is valid. That combination doesn't make sense.
Option Two: Set 1 (with arsenic) is contaminated, hence invalid). Set 2 (without arsenic) is valid. Hence, the murder did not occur.
Option Three: Set 1 (with arsenic) is valid. Set 2 (without arsenic) actually has arsenic, but the technician made an error and missed the poison.
Option 1: As I mention, this just doesn't make sense. How could 1 sample have it, and another not have it?
Option 2: The widow really isn't guilty.
Option 3: If I was the technician in a high-profile case, I think I would be extra careful. My lab procedure would be by-the-book.
You mention that you trust the system. I guess I see the system as merely a group of ordinary people. And people make mistakes. Sometimes they get lazy. Sometimes they take shortcuts, or have bad attitudes. Sometimes they just have bad days.
Now, let's look at those jurors. I've seen lots of people who can't make heads or tails of compound interest. I'd bet you've seen a great many who can't understand the concept of legal elements required to constitute a criminal offense. Are those jurors really capable of evaluating the evidence? I wonder. Your suggestion that many guilty people go free hints that we may be in agreement. At the least, if a guilty person is set free by a jury, then surely the converse can also occur.
Anyway, my inflation adjusted 2 cents worth...
From my understanding of arsenic poisoning from the research I've done, which I will admit is academic as I've not dealt with a case personally, diagnosing arsenic poisoning is difficult, especially if it is from chronic exposure, like having it put in your food in small doses or from drinking a low dose in contaminated ground water, however with chronic exposure over long periods I understand there would be higher levels in the bones and if it occurred over more than a few weeks you could also find it in the hair, now if it were an acute case of poisoning I believe it would be found in the kidneys and liver as was the case in with the initial tests on the deceased. My understanding again is if it were an acute poisoning then there may not be traces in other tissues as the body doesn't have time to metabolize it before dying.
If it were an acute case of poisoning then it might have been possible to take a tissue sample from say the bones of the deceased that did not contain arsenic, if the prosecution’s theory was that it was a case of chronic poisoning over weeks/months/years then this would put their entire case in question. If on the other hand they argued it was an acute poisoning, and there were traces in the bones the defense could argue that it was from an environmental source and not from and intentional act of the accused, this introduces that reasonable doubt that I spoke about earlier. Since they’re saying there was none in this untested sample I would guess they argued chronic poisoning and with none found in this new sample maybe from the bones their theory wouldn’t hold water, but that’s just my guess.
As for how hard arsenic is to acquire as Reaper said I'm not going to go into how to acquire it, I can tell you it is around, I won't go into where but it was used commercially for many years in a product you could find realitively easily, so finding it without a paperwork trail is entirely possible, especially if one has older relatives or friends who still have said products around. I can tell you when my grandmother passed away a few years ago we found one of said products when cleaning out her house.
Lastly in terms of jurors, in my experience when criminals go free it's mostly before they get before a jury in a trial, if the case is strong enough to get that far you've got a good chance, but there are many, many, ways in which criminals who know the system, and they do, can slip through loop holes or exploit any mistakes that were made be it with evidence or paperwork, or often they simply draw cases out as long as possible to try to outlast the officers involved in the case.
The bottom line is I admit we don't have all the facts in this case, based on what I've read, and my experience I can see many scenarios where the wife was guilty, and my gut says she is, but I'm not the DA or investigator in the case so we'll have to wait to see what happens. I hope for the young marine’s family's sake that if the DA no longer believes it was murder, which isn’t necessarily the case but if it is, I hope they do exhume the body and try to determine conclusively what killed him so the family can have closure, because as it sits now I would venture to guess they don't.
As defender stated, he suffered from acute vice chronic arsenic poisoning...the symptoms are noticeably different. Acute poisoning is also what the prosecution alleged. Ironically, all of the friends/lovers of hers that they put on the stand also testified that she did grieve for her husband, and one testified that he felt she was very much sad over her husband's death and he was just a poor replacement.
Several experts testified at trial that the amount of arsenic found in his liver (1020x normal) and kidneys (230x normal) was just about impossible, even in acute poisoning, and felt then that contamination had taken place. I'm willing to bet that her attorney did not exercise due diligence in exploring that further and that is why a new trial was ordered. Acute arsenic poisoning will also manifest in the skin, and I have yet to find mention of any such thing in Sgt. Sommer...but I'm still digging since most of the news reports are hardly scientific in nature.
As another cynical cop, I also think something is not right with his death. But there's enough issues with this case that I could sleep at night knowing she was free.
I am not presently, nor have I ever been a toxicologist...I have a degree in geology, with quite a bit of geochemistry and a little environmental chemistry, but I recall extracting mercury from fish sticks as an undergraduate...and the procedure to extract mercury (and I seem to recall a similar procedure for cadmium and lead) is to use a known sized sample of mercury to draw out the lesser amount in the tissue...as I recall, the amount used to extract what we found in the fish was an order of magnitude or three more than we got back...and since metal atoms are somewhat large, they tend to be attracted to one another...of course, this was 30+ years ago...
With that in mind, if such a procedure were used (and I have not kept abreast of more contemporary procedures), it seems logical that a sample could be easily contaminated, especially if a step in the procedure is missed...FWIW.
As I have been digging, I have found some of the possible reasons for contamination. Apparently the original lab had no experience in testing for arsenic poisoning (it's not your usual test, even at autopsy). On top of that, they used a new machine they were not familiar with and had no SOP for testing and incomplete records.
The blood and urine were negative...which is also inconsistent with the unusually high levels in the kidney and liver. The doctor from AFIS even stated on the stand that he first thought the samples were contaminated, but signed off on them anyway. He (a witness for the prosecution and the one guy responsible for the validity of those test results) called them "inconsistent" on the stand, and yet still they were allowed into evidence. I've got a real problem with that. The only other prosecution witness reference the arsenic had never even treated or autopsied a case.
I think the appeals judge had it right...if her attorney had half a legal brain, he could have had the lab results thrown out and then the case would have gone right along with it.
As for a possible cause of death...it was listed as cardiac arrhythmia. The first time he went to the hospital, he was diagnosed with food poisoning and given Levaquin. Guess what a known adverse reaction to Levaquin is? Drug induced QT longation and Torsades de Pointes. Medics, feel free to jump in here because I can't even really pronounce that last one :D.
As for how hard arsenic is to acquire as Reaper said I'm not going to go into how to acquire it, I can tell you it is around, I won't go into where
Thank you for your thoughts.
With regard to the material in question, I guess my rhetorical ( :o ) question earlier was meant to suggest that the wife would have had to jump through some hoops and take some significant time to accomplish the desired end.
Once upon a time, a crazed immunologist (or CI if you will) and I decided to pursue a get-rich-quick scheme. His idea was to use his knowledge of lab procedures to refine various products for the research marketplace. One in particular sold for $80 per mg retail, and the company was willing to purchase the material for $25 per mg. from us. The raw materials were cheap. Anyway, the material would have been frightfully dangerous, so the CI and I decided that our avarice was not sufficient justification to refine it in his garage.... (Imagine that. Common sense prevailed.)
The general idea was legal (we checked), but in the end not sufficiently profitable, so we didn't get rich. :boohoo ; but the point is, we were just a pair of private individuals buying all manner of unusual things and researching other things in certain academic journals. I take as a given we left a paper trail, which didn't matter to us one way or the other.
As for accumulating various materials quietly, then using them, and making sure that no contact came forward....that strikes me as a pretty remarkable accomplishment. And it would seem to take the degree of planning and premeditation to quite a high degree. If your premise is true, then I could only conclude that she truly hated her husband, or had a breathtaking lack of emotion.
In your professional role, do you see many people that are that cold and calculating?
Defender968
04-23-2008, 11:48
As I have been digging, I have found some of the possible reasons for contamination. Apparently the original lab had no experience in testing for arsenic poisoning (it's not your usual test, even at autopsy). On top of that, they used a new machine they were not familiar with and had no SOP for testing and incomplete records.
The blood and urine were negative...which is also inconsistent with the unusually high levels in the kidney and liver. The doctor from AFIS even stated on the stand that he first thought the samples were contaminated, but signed off on them anyway. He (a witness for the prosecution and the one guy responsible for the validity of those test results) called them "inconsistent" on the stand, and yet still they were allowed into evidence. I've got a real problem with that. The only other prosecution witness reference the arsenic had never even treated or autopsied a case.
I think the appeals judge had it right...if her attorney had half a legal brain, he could have had the lab results thrown out and then the case would have gone right along with it.
As for a possible cause of death...it was listed as cardiac arrhythmia. The first time he went to the hospital, he was diagnosed with food poisoning and given Levaquin. Guess what a known adverse reaction to Levaquin is? Drug induced QT longation and Torsades de Pointes. Medics, feel free to jump in here because I can't even really pronounce that last one :D.
Ok first WOW, that's allot of screw ups, so not only did the DA fail due diligence at her duties, the folks testing failed big time, and her lawyer completely failed. I can agree that with the new info it would seem this was a bad case. So I will concede that this would appear to be a case where an innocent person may have been wrongly convicted if indeed the Levaquin is to blame. That's just disturbing, if the Levaquin is to blame though at least the family will have a medical reason for SSgt Sommers death. Did the original defense attorney not bring this fact up during the trail? Even a first year law student would normally try to bring in any other possible cause of death.
I tried to look up the Drug induced QT longation and Torsades de Pointes, not only couldn't I pronounce it I read a couple of different pages and couldn't make heads or tails of what the actual effect on the body is, (besides death of course).
Blue thanks for the additional info, I guess my Googlefu is getting weak; I'll try not to let it happen again.
Defender968
04-23-2008, 11:59
In your professional role, do you see many people that are that cold and calculating?
Thankfully most criminals are not that calculating, but some are, I would however argue many are that cold. Ask any LEO and if they've been on the job a couple of years they'll probably have some stories to tell.
The worst I've seen involved a guy who started dating a young lady, little did he know her exboyfriend was in jail. The x thought he was still with said young lady and thus viewed the other guy as having taken what was rightfully his. When he got released he found the other man, tied him up in an empty apartment, and tortured him to death using a lamp cord that was cut and plugged in, I won't go any further but that was relatively calculating and it was surely very cold, especially the lengths to which the perp tortured the other guy.
Defender968
04-23-2008, 15:57
Blue that would definitely top my list as well, I'm sorry you had to see that, I've seen lots that I wish I wouldn't have had to see as well, but it goes to show there's always something worse.
I'd like to see this case come to a successful conclusion, be it with a definitive conviction on the merits of a guilty party or with a definitive medical diagnosis as to why/how this young SSGT died.
Blue, Defender - thank you both for the perspectives. It's one thing to see the occasional sanitized newspaper article, and something very different to hear it from someone who was there.
Another poster in a different thread once commented that I seemed to have led a rather protected life; I think I'm glad that is the case.
Best regards to you both. Thank you for your efforts on behalf of all of us.
magician
04-24-2008, 08:19
Thankfully most criminals are not that calculating, but some are, I would however argue many are that cold. Ask any LEO and if they've been on the job a couple of years they'll probably have some stories to tell.
The worst I've seen involved a guy who started dating a young lady, little did he know her exboyfriend was in jail. The x thought he was still with said young lady and thus viewed the other guy as having taken what was rightfully his. When he got released he found the other man, tied him up in an empty apartment, and tortured him to death using a lamp cord that was cut and plugged in, I won't go any further but that was relatively calculating and it was surely very cold, especially the lengths to which the perp tortured the other guy.
I think that having the emotional capability to kill in this fashion is one thing.
It is quite another to plot a murder and then execute it in a way that thwarts forensic detection after the fact.
That requires an entirely different skill set.