Opinion ID: 1801948
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The killing of Clifford and Alma Merck

Text: In September of 1984, Clifford and Alma Merck lived on McClean Street in East Bakersfield. Clifford was 75 years old and Alma was 81; they had been married for almost 33 years. Defendant lived approximately four blocks away on Easter Street. Clifford owned a Colt .25-caliber automatic pistol with white grips and a two-inch barrel. He also owned a metal cigarette lighter cover with a kachina or rain god design on it, and a tooled leather wallet in which he kept his driver's license. Alma owned a turquoise ring and costume jewelry, including a pearl bracelet, a necklace watch, a diamond watch, and earrings. She had at least two jewelry boxesone green, and the other a musical box with a dancing figurine on top. Clifford liked to mark his property with his initials, and he marked some of his wife's property with her initials as well. Clifford had etched his initials on the inside of the grips of his Colt.25-caliber pistol. On August 31, 1984, the Friday before the Labor Day weekend, Alma's son Robert Johnson called the Mercks and told them that he and his wife would be visiting the following Tuesday. Margarita Macias, who lived across the street from the Mercks and sometimes drove them places because Clifford could not see well, last saw the Mercks the following day, Saturday, September 1. Robert Johnson and his wife arrived at the Mercks' house as promised on the morning of Tuesday, September 4, 1984. Johnson first went to the back door and knocked, but nobody answered. He then went to the front door and knocked, but also got no answer. Looking through the front window, he did not see anybody, but he heard the Mercks' dog barking. Johnson returned to the back door, which was not locked, opened it, and peered into the service porch area, which served as a laundry room. Inside, he saw items of the Mercks' property lined up from the back door to the kitchen. Sensing something was wrong, he went to a window on the side of the house and tried to look inside, but so many flies were buzzing around the window that he backed away. Johnson had his wife contact the sheriff's department. Gregory Laskowski, a criminalist with the Kern County Regional Criminalistics Laboratory, responded to the Merck home to investigate. The home had been ransacked. Chairs were overturned, and drawers had been pulled out and their contents strewn about. Items were out of place; the television was in the service porch area. The receiver was missing from the wall phone, and the phone cords and wires were pulled loose. Lamp cords had been severed. On the shelf near the kitchen window, Laskowski found an open pocketknife. Laskowski made his way to one of the bedrooms, where he found Clifford Merck's body lying across the bed, his head under a pillow which had a bullet hole in it. Clifford had been shot in the head twice. An orange throw pillow, which also had a bullet hole in it, was on the bed. In Laskowski's opinion, the purpose of shooting into a pillow was to muffle the sound. Clifford's ankles and wrists were bound with electrical cords, and his blood had drained onto the bedroom floor. The same day, Quentin Nerida, a fingerprint technician with the Kern County Sheriff's Department Technical Investigations unit, went to the Merck crime scene to lift latent fingerprints. Working his way through the house, Nerida arrived at a bedroom used as a sewing room. When he opened the closet doors, Alma's body fell out. Alma had been strangled. Her hands were bound with a lamp cord, and a telephone cord with the receiver still attached was wrapped around her neck and mouth. Dr. Armand Dollinger, a forensic pathologist in the Kern County coroner's office, examined the Mercks' bodies on September 5, 1984. Both bodies were in an advanced state of decomposition, suggesting the Mercks had been dead for several days. Clifford had died from two penetrating gunshot wounds. One bullet had entered slightly above and in front of his left ear, traveled through his head and terminated in the scalp above his right ear, perforating and lacerating his brain. Another bullet had entered the base of his neck on the left side, traveled up and toward the front, and terminated in his spinal canal, lacerating his spinal cord. His death was probably nearly instantaneous. Alma's wrists were bound behind her back with electrical cord, and her ankles were also bound. A telephone cord was wound over her chin and then tightly around her neck. She had died from asphyxiation due to strangulation by ligature. Her death probably occurred about four to five minutes after the cord was tightened around her neck. More than 40 latent fingerprints were lifted from the Merck home. When family members cleaned out the house, they discovered that several Social Security checks were missing. About a month after the murders, Bakersfield police received information about alleged drug activity taking place at the Caravan Inn. On October 14, several officers raided two adjoining rooms at the Caravan Inn and arrested five people, including Danny Phinney and Robert Lutts. In a trash can in one of the rooms, police found a loaded Colt .25-caliber automatic pistol. The initials C and M or W were etched inside the gun's grips. From Phinney's van, the police seized a coin purse, jewelry, watches, a loaded.38-caliber revolver, and a large quantity of methamphetamine packaged for sale. Phinney initially denied knowing anything about the origins of the Colt.25-caliber pistol. Laskowski compared bullets test-fired from the Colt pistol seized in the raid with the bullets recovered from the body of Clifford Merck. He concluded the gun had not fired the bullets. In November 1984, Kern County Sheriff's Department technical investigator Jerry Roper compared the latent fingerprints recovered from the Merck crime scene with the rolled prints of several known suspects, including defendant, but found no match. [4] At trial, Roper could not recall if anyone had doublechecked his work. In January 1985, the latent prints lifted from the scene were compared with the rolled prints of Phinney and Lutts. Again, no match was found. [5] Meanwhile, Phinney, a drug addict who suffered from bipolar disorder and had several misdemeanor drug-related convictions, was in protective custody following his arrest. Before his arrest Phinney had been using primarily street speed (methamphetamine), but he also had used LSD, mescaline, peyote, amphetamines, and barbiturates. While in jail, Phinney read a newspaper article about a secret witness program seeking information about the Merck murders. Someone pointed out the initials of the victims, which triggered in Phinney's mind the memory of the initials on the Colt .25-caliber pistol seized in the raid. Phinney also recognized the street nameMcClean Streetbecause he had seen it before. Concerned that his connection to the gun might tie him to the murders, Phinney decided to talk to the police. Phinney gave a statement to Detective John Diederich of the Kern County Sheriff's Department on December 21, 1984. The statement was taperecorded and transcribed. Phinney told Diederich that sometime after Labor Day in September 1984 he had met defendant at an auto parts store in Bakersfield and then gone with him to defendant's brother's house on Pearl Street. At the house, defendant showed Phinney a bag of coins, including a 1922 silver dollar; some costume jewelry; two government checks in the name of Merck or Myrick on McClean Street with a total value of about $600; and a carved leather billfold with a driver's license, medical cards, and a Social Security card inside. The year of birth on the driver's license was 1911 or 1914. Phinney also saw a Shafter High School class ring, plastic pearls, a necklace, [6] and two jewelry boxesone green, the other with a dancing figurine on top. [7] During the interview, Detective Diederich showed Phinney the Colt .25-caliber pistol seized in the raid. Phinney said he had heard that defendant had sold the gun to Lutts, who had tried to file the initials off. Phinney recalled that defendant had said, regarding the gun, Whatever happens, don't get caught with it, and eat it; throw it away or whatever, but don't get caught with it. Craig Fraley was the Kern County Sheriff's Department detective in charge of the Merck case from December 1984 through September 1987. In January 1985, Fraley contacted defendant's sister, Catherine Glass. Glass produced a turquoise ring, which she said she had purchased from defendant. That month, Fraley showed the ring to Alma Merck's granddaughter, Terri Jones. At trial, Jones testified that exhibit No. 39, the ring Fraley obtained from Glass, looked like her grandmother's ring. During the investigation the ring also was shown to Alma's daughter, Mary Watts, who recognized the ring as her mother's. At trial, Watts testified that exhibit No. 39, the ring obtained from Glass, look[ed] like her mother's ring. There appeared to be an M scratched into the underside of the ring. Also in January 1985, Fraley interviewed Ronnie Woodin, a friend of defendant's since childhood. Woodin gave Fraley a metal cigarette lighter with a kachina or rain god design on it, which he said he had purchased from defendant for $5 sometime between the 10th and 13th of the previous September. Woodin also said defendant had a bag of things he was trying to sell, including costume jewelry. Woodin told Fraley that when he asked defendant where he had gotten the lighter, defendant said never mind or something similar. At trial Woodin confirmed that he had purchased the lighter from defendant. Fraley showed the lighter to Terri Jones's husband Jerry Jones on January 30, 1985. Jones said he had seen Clifford Merck use the lighter many times. The investigation of the Merck murders languished until mid-1994, when James Christopherson was promoted from patrolman to detective in the robbery/homicide unit of the Kern County Sheriff's Department. Christopherson had secured the Merck crime scene and searched for witnesses in 1984, but otherwise had not been involved in the investigation. After obtaining permission to reopen the investigation, in May 1994 Christopherson asked the technical investigations unit to recompare all of the latent fingerprints lifted from the Merck murder scene with the rolled prints of seven known suspects, including defendant and his brother Gerald. Supervisor Thomas Jones assigned the initial comparison to Sharon Pierce. Pierce concluded a latent print lifted from the inside of the back service porch door above the doorknob (latent print No. 10) matched defendant's left thumbprint, and a latent print lifted from the bottom of a plastic sewing tray that had been lying on a table in the dining room area (latent print No. 44) matched defendant's left middle fingerprint. Per department policy, Pierce brought all of the latent prints, and the rolled prints of all of the suspects she had compared with them, to Jones and had him recheck her work. Jones independently determined that latent prints Nos. 10 and 44 matched the rolled prints from defendant's left thumb and left middle finger, respectively. In July of 1994, Jones brought defendant's rolled prints and the cards with latent prints Nos. 10 and 44 to the Department of Justice in Sacramento for verification of the match. Martin Collins, the latent print supervisor there, confirmed that the latent prints matched defendant's rolled prints. Another examiner in the office agreed. [8] Detective Christopherson interviewed defendant on August 8, 1994. Defendant consistently denied any involvement in the Merck murders, even after learning that his fingerprints had been found at the crime scene. Detective Christopherson reinterviewed Phinney on August 23, 1994. During this interview, Phinney revealed for the first time that he had acted as a go-between for the transfer of the Colt .25-caliber automatic pistol from defendant to Lutts. He also revealed for the first time that, after taking the gun apart and seeing the initials on the inside, Lutts had attempted to alter the rifling by putting things down the barrel. Told about the possible alteration of the rifling, in April 1996 criminalist Laskowski made a mold of the inside of the gun's barrel and compared it to the bullets removed from Clifford Merck's body. This time, Laskowski concluded the gun had fired the bullets that killed Clifford Merck. Robert Lutts, who in 1984 sold drugsmostly methamphetamineto support his own drug habit and had been convicted of felonies including robbery and possession of drugs for sale, testified that he believed he had obtained the Colt .25-caliber pistol seized in the October 1984 raid on the Caravan Inn from defendant through Phinney, as payment for drugs. He acknowledged having taken the gun apart and having seen the initials on the grips, but denied having tried to alter the barrel's rifling. Mitzi Cowan, who in 1984 was defendant's brother Gerald's girlfriend and later married Gerald, testified that sometime between the first and fifth of September 1984, defendant and his girlfriend, Gerry Tags, came to the apartment that Mitzi shared with Gerald. Defendant had a box full of clothes and some other items, such as jewelry. Mitzi remembered in particular an older silver watch and a necklace with a heart'shaped watch on it. Gerald put the necklace in his pocket. Later that day he threw it into a vacant field. Former Shafter Police Lieutenant John Porter testified that he had interviewed Emma Foreman, the mother of defendant's girlfriend Gerry Tags, in January 1990. Foreman told Porter that defendant had admitted beating to death an old couple he had found in a bedroom in Bakersfield.