Opinion ID: 1801800
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Discovery of Urban's Body

Text: On the morning of March 24, 1987, while delivering newspapers, Eusebio Duran saw a man's body off to the side of Dickinson Street between the road and a vineyard. The area surrounding the spot was agricultural and covered with vineyards. Duran delivered a few more papers and then made a U-turn and drove slowly past the body. The man was faceup, with his arms to his sides, and there was a large pool of blood around his head. Duran drove to a grocery store and called the police. He remained in the area until the police arrived, within three minutes of his call, and made a statement to them. Pete Chavez, a detective with the Fresno County Sheriff's Department, arrived at the scene about 5:45 a.m. The weather was cold and wet as there had been rain a few days earlier. Chavez observed that the man's body was on its right side and there was blood beneath his head and upper body area. The man was clad in white pants, a tan jacket, and black tennis shoes. There were three sets of shoe prints around the body; these were photographed. When Chavez approached the body he saw injuries to the head. In the man's right hand were car keys. The keys were later identified by Mardeau Hipp as belonging to the van she had borrowed from her father. The man was Richard Urban. According to Jerry Nelson, the pathologist, the cause of death was gunshot wounds to Urban's brain and brain stem. Two bullets were recovered from the crime scene and sent to the prosecution's ballistics expert, Allen Boudreau. A third bullet was removed from Urban's skull and also examined by Boudreau. Pathologist Nelson concluded that two of the three gunshot wounds would likely have been fatal. He also concluded that two of the shots were fired from a distance of six to 12 inches from Urban's head. He could not determine the distance from which the third shot was fired, except to say that the gun had not been pressed against Urban's head. The pathologist believed that one of the shots was fired while Urban was lying on the ground, while another shot had been fired from above his head and in a downward direction. He could not determine either how many individuals had fired the shots or how many guns had been used. Based on his examination of the three bullets, Boudreau concluded that all were likely the same caliber, but he could not tell whether they had been fired from the same weapon.