 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
People v. Singh2/10/2003
closed as the floors were being buffed. He saw a car, and walked up to it because it was running roughly or barely idling, and at first there did not appear to be anyone inside. Jose saw someone slumped over inside on the driver's side. He tapped on the window with his knuckle, noticed the infant and some blood, and then realized something was very wrong. A car with occupants was pulling up to use the phone, and he asked them for change to call 911. Jose then placed the call, a tape of which was played at trial.
Lawrence Rinetti and a co-worker were the occupants of the vehicle Jose saw pull into the lot and approach the phone. After seeing Jose, Rinetti walked over to the car where he saw the dead victims. No one else was seen leaving the area.
Hayward Police Officer Jeffrey Albertelli responded to the 2:04 a.m. 911 call, arriving at the scene several minutes later. It was a stormy night with heavy rain, and a car was parked in a dark, isolated area. The car was racing at high idle.
Albertelli saw what appeared to be blood smears on the inside of the window on the driver's side of the parked vehicle. Inside were a female slumped over in the driver's seat, and in the right passenger seat there was an infant in a car seat. The doors were all closed, and all the doors were locked except for the rear passenger door.
Fire Captain Arthur Strong of the Hayward Fire Department was called to the scene of the shootings shortly after 2:00 a.m. on December 1, 1996. He viewed the bodies inside the car, but he and the other emergency personnel responding to the scene were careful not to touch anything unnecessarily. Paramedics arrived and confirmed the victims were dead.
Arriving at the scene at 3:15 a.m., Hayward Police Department crime scene technician Pauline Gaffey collected evidence including casings and spent bullets, and a Food 4 Less bag in the front seat of the car; she also saw blood spatter at the scene. A steak knife was recovered from the driver's door pouch. Gunshot residue swabs of the back of the driver's seat and passenger's seat were taken, and the car was dusted for latent fingerprints.
A fingerprint expert, Crisanto Pagtakhan, testified that, while some latent fingerprints were identifiable, none matched appellant, and some matched the victim Rhoshima. Pagtakhan found identifiable latent prints on the letter notifying appellant of his paternity of the child, and these prints matched appellant's fingerprints. However, Pagtakhan could not locate the letter at the time of trial.
B. The Autopsy Results
Thomas Wayne Rogers, M.D., a pathologist with the Institute of Forensic Sciences, had previously performed thousands of autopsies. He performed autopsies on the victims on December 1, 1996.
Rhoshima's body had three entrance wounds on the top of her head, aiming downward. All three wounds were inflicted while she was alive, as blood in her lungs and stomach showed she breathed and swallowed at least once after she was shot. There was a bruise to her eye, which was probably caused by the shots. No evidence of prior recent use of alcohol or drugs was found. Dr. Rogers also found a two-inch long fetus in her uterus, with well defined organs and body parts, which distinguished it from an embryo. The fetus died because the death of the mother cut off the flow of blood and oxygen.
As to the six-month-old child, Michael Glass Singh, or Mike-Mike, Dr. Rogers' autopsy showed the infant weighed about 15 pounds and was 27 inches long. There were three entrance wounds to the child's head, all of which contained stippling or powder burns, and a fourth entrance wound to the chest which damaged th
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 California Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|