Opinion ID: 2590211
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Murder of Donald Harold Crisel

Text: In June 1979, Donald Crisel, then 20 years old, was a United States Marine stationed in Tustin. He stood five feet 10 or 11 inches tall and weighed 160 or 165 pounds. Around 1:30 a.m. on June 16, 1979, a fellow Marine saw Crisel walking alone near the Marine base. Crisel said he was going to a restaurant near the base. About 9:30 or 9:45 p.m. that day, a passing motorist saw a body later identified as Crisel's on the side of the Irvine Center on-ramp to the northbound San Diego Freeway in Irvine. A responding police officer testified Crisel had no pulse, but was warm to the touch and bleeding slowly from the nostrils. Crisel was wearing only undershorts, on which there appeared to be tire tracks. The body evidently had been pushed from a moving vehicle, as it bore road burns. Dr. Richards, who performed the autopsy, determined the cause of death to be multiple drug overdose. Crisel's blood-alcohol level at the time of death was 0.06 percent. Potentially fatal levels of acetaminophen, as well as the antihistamines phenylpropanolamine and phenyltoloxamine, were also in Crisel's blood. The analgesic phenacetin and chlorpheniramine were also present. Postembalming photographs revealed ligature marks, between one-half inch and one inch in width, on the neck. The wrists also bore faint ligature marks. Had the toxicology results been negative, Richards would have found the cause of death to have been ligature strangulation. Crisel's left nipple had been lightly burned with a car cigarette lighter after his death. The prosecutor argued to the jury that the entry MARINE DRUNK OVERNIGHT SHORTS on defendant's list referred to Crisel, theorizing that defendant encountered Crisel around 1:30 or 2:00 a.m. and kept him overnight until the following evening. The defense presented evidence that Crisel had a history of alcohol abuse and sinus problems, and that military police had information about other possible suspects in Crisel's murder. A criminalist testified that the type of tire on the car defendant owned at the time Crisel was murdered would not have left the pattern found on the victim's undershorts. Another criminalist testified she examined trace evidence, consisting of a hair, a clothing-type fiber and an animal-type fiber, on the undershorts, but could not link any of them to defendant.