Opinion ID: 1447881
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Physical Evidence Relating to the Murder

Text: On November 18, 1984, Deputy Michael Griggs participated in the recovery of the victim's car from an Alhambra market parking lot. In the back seat of the car, Deputy Griggs found a yellow credit card receipt and a cash register receipt from Kinney's Shoe Store. On the evening of November 30, 1984, Deputy Griggs seized a.357 magnum revolver from defendant's residence. Deputy Robert Hawkins, a firearms and toolmark examiner for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, testified that he had examined the weapon and determined that the gun was a single-action revolver; to fire the weapon, the user must manually retract the hammer each time before pulling the trigger. Deputy Hawkins also testified that on December 6, 1984, he retrieved two expended bullets and a piece of lead from the scene of the shooting at the church parking lot. He concluded that the expended bullets were fired from defendant's gun. After taking scrapings from ricochet marks on one of the church walls, he determined that the expended bullets, which also had wall plaster on them, had struck the church wall and did not cause the victim's death. An autopsy was performed on the victim's body. Dr. Eva Heuser, a deputy medical examiner for the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office, reviewed the records and notes of the physician who had performed the autopsy. Dr. Heuser testified that the victim's cause of death was a gunshot wound to the chest, caused by a single bullet that entered the left side of her chest and exited through her back. The victim also had five or six lacerations on the back of her head that could have been caused by the butt end of a revolver.