And the attacker is her brother.
TLDR: The woman was severely hacked with an axe or machete, and left laying on her couch to die. Police find no evidence to charge anyone.
She wakes two year later and identifies her brother as the attacker. Here’s the police quote:
“When asked why Daniel assaulted her, Wanda stated that he was mean,” a deputy said in the complaint, which was signed by a magistrate Thursday.
I guess that says it all.
It sounds like she is not fully recovered. What is the process when there is a key witness who might fall back into a coma or die before trial? The article talks about a magsitrate “signing a complaint”. Does that formalize her testimony to ensure that it can be heard at trial?
I have to wonder how reliable memories, or mental state in general, are after awakening from a two-year coma.
I’m pretty sure they could get whatever they call a death-bed recording these days from her. I think it can be played in court. I don’t know what the rule is about the defense not being able to cross examine. Hopefully one of our lawyers will show up.
I think this is just so they could arrest the brother.
She remembered that she was sitting on the couch in her home. We know that was true, that’s where they found her. Maybe it will come down to who is believed. I see dueling doctor opinions in the future.
The brother is refusing to sign any paperwork at all, so no lawyer for him yet.
IANAL. Giles v California would make it inadmissable under the Confrontation Clause unless he comes back and kills her so she can’t testify.
That looks like the non-allowed testimony was from a totally different event. They wanted to introduce evidence from a prior domestic abuse complaint in her murder trial.
In this case the evidence would be from the same incident, his attempted murder of her.
Except the point of Giles was that he did not kill her specifically to prevent her from testifying therefore the deathbed testimony was disallowed. Same as the situation here.
It sounds like the woman has severe brain injuries from the axe attack. I hope ahe wakes long enough to make a statement that will be allowed in court.
There has been a lot of study on the subject of the reliability of witness identification following brain damage. Sadly this comes up all too often. Victims of severe attacks can be left with brain damage that may or may not affect their ability to identify an attacker, and as mentioned above trials can turn into medical opinion vs. medical opinion contests. There is a big problem in these cases, victims who misidentify their attacker are likely to name someone close to them, in their mind clearly remembering the incident, even when there is indisputable contrary evidence.
If there is no physical evidence, it’s hard to see how authorities could expect to get a conviction on the basis of a brain-damaged individual’s memory of something that happened two years earlier, even without a two-year interval of coma.
There was a 2004 murder in New York State, in which a man attacked his sleeping parents with an axe, killing his father and causing his mother grievous head injuries The mother was briefly questioned on-scene before being taken to the hospital and nodded yes when asked if her son had attacked her. Later, she said she had no memory of having implicated him and stood by him during his murder trial, which resulted in conviction and a lengthy prison sentence.
There is other circumstantial evidence including a witness seeing the brother there that night and a history of the brother being violent.
A lot more evidence in that case. The current one is pretty sparse and things like DNA or fingerprints wouldn’t be of much use as I assume the brother had been in the home before.
Like I said, dueling doctor testimony. Do public defenders have the budget to hire doctors to testify? Maybe they have doctors on retainer for the whole office.
Not much, but better than nothing.
When I was a public defender we had to go to court and request funds for that kind of expert. In a serious case, it would generally be authorized.
I was thinking of naming you here to see if you would weigh in. Thanks. as always, for your expertise.
All an expert could say was that someone of approximately the bother’s build did it and then there would be another expert to say it could have been anyone. I agree that there isn’t really enough to convict beyond a reasonable doubt.
Nothing surprising about that.
In murder cases, if you immediately arrest the spouse/ fiancé/ boyfriend/ girlfriend, you will have caught the criminal in 65-75% of cases. So it’s a very good bet that the murderer is an intimate partner or immediate family member in most cases.
Yeah, not really a surprise it was someone she knew. I’m just hoping that this story will get updated with a little more info. It would be interesting to know if police got an alibi from him and it checked out. He had to be on the “person of interest” list with them having a history of fighting.
Without the means to pay for a good lawyer he’ll get convicted no matter what the state of the evidence. I don’t see a jury letting this guy go. Maybe reversed on appeal some day.
I’m surprised that he was actually arrested and bail is $500,000 on just her word. I can see questioning him, but arresting on just her say so seems weak. They must have something else to present that’s not in the article.
The story also has a lot of elements for subconscious conclusions Living in a trailer in West Virginia, feuding family, belligerent suspect. I’m sure many assume these people are trailer trash. We actually know next to nothing about their lives. They could be solidly middle class for all we know.
I have to question the early investigation. Whacking someone with an axe is going to cover the assailant in evidence. That will transfer to his vehicle and into their home.
I remember OJ allegedly stepped in blood and the shoes left marks on the sidewalk. The shoe pattern matched a very rare and expensive brand. Proving he owned that brand was evidence in the trial.
The brother allegedly has a violent reputation. He should have been an early suspect. I can’t understand why physical evidence didn’t tie him to the attack.