Opinion ID: 3047100
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Havekost Trial Testimony

Text: At trial, Havekost testified about his testing of the full bottles Q1 through Q3, the washings from the empty bottles Q11 through Q14, and the powder residue in the brown bottle, Q206, from Trepal’s garage. Havekost testified that he found thallium in all of those samples. Trepal has never challenged Havekost’s findings, testing methodology, or trial testimony. 7. Martz’s Testimony Before Martz tested any samples, thallium had already been found in all of them. Martz was asked only to determine what salt of thallium was in the samples of Coca-Cola from the full Coca-Cola bottles Q1, Q2, and Q3, and from the residue found in the brown bottle Q206. Martz did not test, and did not testify about, the washings from the empty Coca-Cola bottles Q11 through Q14. Martz first tested the Coca-Cola from the full Q1, Q2, and Q3 bottles. Martz testified that he performed a diphenylamine (“DP”) test on all three samples and “got a blue color,” which he said indicated the solution “contains a nitrate.” Martz testified: “Based on that test I concluded that thallium nitrate was added to the Coca-Cola.” 21 Martz also performed an ion chromatography (“IC”) test to determine whether thallium nitrate was present in the Q1, Q2, and Q3 samples. Martz testified that he tested all three samples and again concluded that all three samples contained nitrate ions. Based on the DP and IC tests, Martz opined that thallium nitrate was in the Q1, Q2, and Q3 samples.13 On cross-examination, Martz admitted he did not “a hundred percent” exclude the possibility that the nitrate he found in the Coca-Cola may have come from a source other than the thallium salt that was added, but Martz “found nothing else in the Coca-Cola to indicate that anything else was present.” Later, Martz received Q206, the brown bottle with white powder in it from Trepal’s garage, and was asked to identify the white powder. Martz tested the powder using infrared and x-ray diffraction (“XRD”) and concluded the brown bottle contained thallium I nitrate.14 Martz did not measure quantitatively the amount of substance in the bottle, but “based on the tests [he] did, nothing else was identified.” The powder weighed .64 grams, which is about “a little more than two aspirin tablets” or one “extra strength capsule” of Tylenol. 13 There was no way from those tests to determine whether the thallium nitrate was thallium I nitrate or thallium III nitrate. And as to Q1, Q2, and Q3, Martz did not testify whether it was I or III, but only that it was thallium nitrate. 14 Martz testified that thallium I nitrate and thallium III nitrate “have different crystalline structures, and the x-ray equipment is able to differentiate those particular two compounds.” 22 8. Testing by Coca-Cola Corporate Laboratory Chemists at the Coca-Cola corporate laboratory tested the effect of adding various thallium salts to bottled Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola chemists first added various thallium compounds to bottles of Coca-Cola to see which would dissolve. The chemists successfully dissolved thallium malonate, thallium formate, thallium phosphate, and thallium sulfate in the Coca-Cola, and re-capped the bottle. When finished, the Coca-Cola in the recapped bottle “looked the same” as it had before. Later the Coca-Cola chemists performed this test using thallium I nitrate and thallium III nitrate. The thallium I nitrate dissolved and the Coca-Cola looked normal. The thallium III nitrate did not dissolve well. It “gave a . . . brownish precipitant” and “[t]he Coca-Cola turned sort of a muddy color.” In time, “the muddy color settled to the bottom” of the bottle, but “the beverage looked substantially different, much lighter in color, and there was a precipitant or sort of a muddy-looking substance at the bottom of the bottle.” A Coca-Cola representative came to the FBI Lab and tested the three full bottles of Coca-Cola (Q1, Q2, and Q3) for carbonization and pressure. The three bottles had lower than Coca-Cola’s normal levels of carbonization and pressure. This was evidence that the Coca-Cola bottles had been uncapped so that thallium 23 could be added to them, and then recapped. Notably too, a witness had seen Trepal with a device used to recap bottles.