Opinion ID: 2039996
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The three time frames in which this murder could have occurred

Text: Even assuming some motive existed for Dorthy Wyss' murder by someone other than Wyss, a jury could reasonably conclude that the hypothesis that an unknown intruder murdered Dorthy Wyss in the three time frames in which it would have to have occurred has no basis in this record. The pathologist testified that the murder occurred between 2:00 a.m. and 12:00 noon on November 17, 1981. The murder could not have occurred between 4:30 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. if the jury accepted the defendant's testimony that he got up at 4:30 a.m. and left for work at 5:00 a.m. because clearly he would have heard something. For the same reason, the murder also could not have occurred between 7:30 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. because that was the time the children got up and left for school. Thus, in examining the defendant's hypothesis that an unknown intruder came into his house sometime between 2:00 a.m. and 12:00 noon and killed his wife, we must look at three time frames in which that hypothesis could have occurred: 1) Between 8:00 a.m. and 12:00 noon when no one other than Dorthy was home; 2) Between 5:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. when the children were asleep and the defendant was at work; and 3) Between 2:00 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. when everyone was home.
The evidence strongly suggests and the jury could have reasonably concluded that Dorthy Wyss was dead before the children left for school at 8:00 a.m. The pathologist testified that the death was much more likely to have occurred between 2:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. than between 6:00 a.m. and noon. That testimony is corroborated by two other pieces of evidence. Dorthy Wyss had a hair appointment for 8:30 a.m. that day. She had personally made that appointment at 4:00 p.m. the previous day. She had averaged 2-3 appointments a month at that hairdresser's shop since September of 1980. The hairdresser testified it was Dorthy Wyss' practice to be timely for her appointments. The hairdresser told Dorthy when she made the appointment the previous day that the 17th was her day off but that she would come on my day off to do it for her but that she would prefer to do it early in the day so she could have the rest of the day off. It is highly unlikely that Dorthy Wyss would have missed that appointment. The hairdresser also testified that when Dorthy Wyss failed to appear, she tried calling the Wyss home at 8:45 a.m. and twice more that morning but no one answered. Beth Meyer, a receptionist at the Dean Clinic, testified that on the morning of November 17, she called the Wyss home between 8:30 and 9:00 a.m. to set up an appointment. She received no answer. Thereafter she tried to telephone Dorthy Wyss' home at intervals of every 45 minutes to an hour until about 5:00 p.m. but received no answer. We find that a jury could reasonably conclude that the evidence was sufficiently strong to exclude to a moral certainty the hypothesis that an unknown intruder killed Dorthy Wyss between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 12:00 noon.
A jury could find it equally unreasonable to believe that an unknown intruder committed this murder between 5:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. while the children were asleep. Neither John nor JoReen heard a sound in the house during those early morning hours and were not awakened. The evidence strongly suggests this was a murder done in a raging frenzy. The victim's throat was slashed from ear to ear, there were 33 stab/cut wounds and 12-20 slash wounds; and there was an attempt made to separate the head from the body by sawing at the vertebra after the victim was already dead or within moments of being dead. The defensive wounds on Dorthy Wyss' hands indicate that she put up a struggle. In order for this murder to have occurred between 5:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m., the intruder would have had to come into a strange house in a darkened and semi-darkened condition, search the house for Dorthy Wyss, become sufficiently motivated to kill her, search the house for the white-handled steak knife, kill her in a raging frenzy while she attempted to defend herself, and have done all this without waking the children. We find that a jury could reasonably conclude that the evidence was sufficiently strong to exclude to a moral certainty the hypothesis that an unknown intruder killed Dorthy Wyss between the hours of 5:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m.
There is strong evidence from which the jury could reasonably conclude that this is the time frame in which Dorthy Wyss was killed. John Wyss testified he heard his mother scream some time between 2:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m. It was a dull, deadened scream; he had never heard his mother scream like that before. The pathologist testified it was much more likely that the murder occurred between 2:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. rather than between 6:00 a.m. and 12:00 noon. Dorthy failed to keep a hair appointment at 8:30 a.m. The telephone was not answered that morning. In order for an unknown intruder to have killed Dorthy Wyss between 2:00 a.m. and 4:30 a.m., the intruder would have had to enter a strange house at night in a darkened condition, search the house for Dorthy, become sufficiently motivated to kill her, search the house for the white-handled steak knife, kill her in a raging frenzy while she attempted to defend herself, and have done all this without the defendant being aware of it. The defendant himself testified that he was not sleeping well that night. He testified that sound carried fairly easily from the recreation room to his bedroom. The defendant testified that he got up a number of times during the night. He heard Dorthy Wyss vomiting. His testimony is silent with respect to any scream. That the defendant heard Dorthy Wyss vomiting but did not hear anything else is not believable. The defendant himself testified that every darn sound could be heard from that rec room in his bedroom. This murder occurred in the rec room. We find that a jury could reasonably conclude that the evidence was sufficiently strong to exclude to a moral certainty the hypothesis that an unknown intruder killed Dorthy Wyss between the hours of 2:00 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. Lastly, in support of his hypothesis that an unknown intruder murdered his wife, Wyss emphasizes that no significant items of evidence implicate him. Further, he argues that certain pieces of physical evidence affirmatively indicate the presence of an unknown intruder. We find no merit in either argument. The defendant emphasizes that no significant items of physical evidence implicate him. The State found no fingerprint or fingernail scrapings incriminating him. No bloodstains or spots were found on his person or clothing. Nevertheless, the jury had ample evidence before it to conclude, as they obviously did, that the defendant had time to clean himself at his home or his workplace and could have destroyed incriminating items of clothing he might have been wearing. The record does not indicate what, if any, bed clothes the defendant wore when he went to bed that night. If there were any clothes to destroy, the cheese factory maintained an incinerator which burned almost constantly and which was readily accessible to where the defendant parked his car. The defendant points to certain pieces of evidence as supporting his theory that an unknown intruder killed Dorthy: 1) In his brief, defendant argues [t]hey also found a bloody doorknob, leading to the basement from the garage. . . . Blood analyses determined that the blood on the doorknob was of human origin, but of an unidentified person. Although a reader might infer from the defendant's statement that the blood on the doorknob was from someone other than Dorthy Wyss or the defendant (but of an unidentified person), the record indicates that the lab technician was unable to type the blood at all due to conditions beyond her control. Thus, although the blood was of human origin, it could have been anyone's including Dorthy Wyss' or the defendant's. (The doorknob in question was on the side of the door leading from the basement to the garage, not from the garage to the basement.) 2) The defendant also argues, in further support of his unknown intruder hypothesis, that [h]airs were retrieved. . . from her right hand and from the coroner's body bag. Two hairs from the body bag and one hair from the victim's hand were not identifiable as being from the victim, the defendant or the two Wyss children living at home. As to these two pieces of evidence, the record indicates the following: a) Hairs from the victim's right hand: of the six hairs stuck to the hand of Dorthy Wyss from the blood, one hair was not consistent with that of the defendant or Dorthy Wyss; one hair was not suitable for comparison; four hairs were similar to the hair of Dorthy Wyss. By the word similar, the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory analyst indicated hairs (that) are consistent in the microscopic characteristics observed, and therefore could have originated from a common source. b) Hairs from the coroner's body bag: of the five hairs obtained from the body bag, the state crime laboratory analyst testified that one hair was similar to the defendant's hair; two hairs were not similar to that of the defendant, Dorthy Wyss, or of the two children; and, although the record does not state it with specificity, the remaining two hairs were similar to Dorthy Wyss' hair. (There were some hairs that were similar in the general appearance with thefrom the body bag with the standard [Dorthy Wyss'] head hair.) The analyst testified that [i]t's highly likely that you would find [hair from] people living within the household and anyone else that would have visited the house or come in contact with her. Thus, that a hair from a person who was not a member of the family was found stuck to Dorthy's hand, and that two hairs that fell from the body bag used to transport the victim's body to the morgue were not from a member of the family is totally inconclusive. No evidence showed that only the family used the recreation room. The victim was lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Any hairs previously left on the floor by visitors to the Wyss home could easily have attached themselves to her bloodied clothing or hand. This evidence, which the defendant points to in support of his unknown intruder theory, is so speculative and so inconclusive that a reasonable jury could give it no weight. Given all of this evidence and the inferences to be drawn from itthe extremely jealous nature of the defendant, that fights between the defendant and his wife were frequently precipitated by drinking after she went uptown and got back in the evenings, his statement a year previous that someday she would find her throat slit, his distraught statements overheard by his daughter shortly after Dorthy's body was discovered, Why did you get drunk? Why did you make me mad at you? . . . why, whywe conclude that the evidence in this record is strong enough for a jury to exclude to a moral certainty every reasonable hypothesis of innocence.