Expert slams forensic work in Palatine woman's murder

A forensic scientist who reviewed the investigation of a grisly 2005 Palatine murder said some testing done at the crime scene was "incomplete and insufficient" and said there wasn't enough analysis done to piece together what might have happened.

The opinions of Karl Reich, who works for an independent Illinois forensics laboratory, took up a large portion of Thursday's testimony in the murder trial of Diana Thames -- a downstate Bloomington woman charged with fatally stabbing Cindy Wolosick, her friend and business partner.

Prosecutors allege Thames, who slept over at her friend's Palatine condo the night of the brutal murder, stabbed Wolosick with a kitchen knife after the two argued over finances.

But Thames, now 50, has told police she heard someone buzzed into the apartment that night, heard a man's voice, then awoke later to the front door closing and found her friend, bloodied in her bed.

Her defense team has repeatedly hinted at less-than-thorough police work, and Reich's Thursday testimony proceeded on that theme.

Reich, who wasn't involved with any of the crime scene analysis, suggested there were many passed-over opportunities for more DNA testing -- from the condo's exterior and a toilet seat lid that had been left up to the knife block that had once held the murder weapon -- and said he believes the analyses requested by police were rudimentary.

Among other things, he said, there appeared to be no testing done to look specifically for the presence of any male DNA in the condo, even though he said he believes Wolosick's wounds seem to suggest a man as the killer.

Reich also said he doubted the substance identified by police as cleaned-up blood in the kitchen, the bathroom and guest bathroom sinks was blood at all. More likely, he said, it was residue from cleaning products or other items that can react like blood to the tests performed.

"I don't know that it's not blood, but if it is blood, other tests should have been done to confirm it," he said, insisting even under cross-examination that it's "highly unlikely" -- but possible -- that the substance was blood.

Testing had revealed what police said was evidence of a bloody footprint in the guest tub as well. Reich said that print appeared to him to be larger than a U.S. size 11.

In the course of the trial, a man who lived below Wolosick said he never heard anyone else come or go from the condo the night of the killing. Prosecutors also offered witnesses who bolstered the state's theory that Thames killed Wolosick over dire business finances -- including an investor who said he'd been owed money and was getting the "runaround."

On Thursday, a woman who once managed the books for the business venture said there had been a plan to pay the investor. The Monday after Wolosick and Thames returned from a Mexico vacation, she said, the business was closing on a property and the cash would go to the investor.

But prosecutors suggested that wouldn't have been enough to pay him in full. Wolosick was killed the night she returned from Mexico.

Wolosick, 46, was a speech and language pathologist at Palatine's Lake Louise School.

Thames at one point confessed to the killing, but those taped statements can't be used in the trial. Cook County Judge John Scotillo barred them after Thames' lawyers argued she'd been denied an attorney and intimidated.

The trial is scheduled to resume today with another defense witness at 1:30 p.m.