Rivera defense challenges door theories in babysitter's murder
A witness for Juan Rivera's defense on Monday challenged police theories on how the person who killed Holly Staker got in and out of the apartment where she died.
Rivera, 36, is on trial for the third time for the Aug. 17, 1992 rape and murder of the 11-year-old baby sitter. He has twice been found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, but new trials were ordered after each conviction.
Kenneth Moses, a crime scene expert from San Francisco, testified he was hired by Rivera's defense team in 2006 to examine evidence in the case. One item Moses said he examined was the damaged rear door to the Hickory Street apartment.
Police have said Rivera told them in his confession he took a blue mop and smashed the hole near the bottom of the outside of the door after he killed the girl. Rivera told police he did so to make it appear someone had broken into the apartment when Holly had actually invited him inside.
Moses said he believes the mop was used on the door, but that was not the only effort made to force it open.
He said he found what appeared to be pry marks left by a screwdriver on the catch plate for the door lock.
Moses said he also discovered at least two sides of the box-shaped hole near the bottom of the door had been cut with a sharp knife or box cutter.
"Whoever did this went along the bottom and up one side trying to cut out a box," Moses said. "Then force was applied, and the remaining sides were just punched out."
Although police say Rivera told them he left through the back door after he killed the girl, Moses said it is possible the killer used a door at the front of the apartment to exit.
He said a series of blood stains on the wall of the stairwell leading from the apartment to street level could have been left by the killer.
Moses said the shape of the stains indicated to him they were made by the contact of an open wound with the wall, and were not a sign of blood dripping freely from someone.
"Each of the stains going down the stairs is smaller than the one above it," Moses said. "This is an indication that the same wound is bumping on the wall, leaving less blood behind each time."
Also on Monday, an evidence technician said that a week after the murder, he identified the mop as the item used to damage the door.
Lake County Sheriff's Lt. Bert Foster said he received a call from the crime lab telling him something round and blue was used on the door Aug. 24, and he found the mop that day.
Earlier in the trial, detectives said they did not know the mop was used on the door until Rivera told them he did it, and they had not read Foster's report on the mop.
<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=288941">Ex-cop: Rivera acted out attack on 11-year-old babysitter<span class="date">[4/24/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=288704">Detective: Rivera acted strange after first confession<span class="date">[4/24/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=288411">Sister says Staker had sexual encounter years before murder<span class="date">[4/23/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=288080">Blue mop information at the center of Rivera case<span class="date">[4/22/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=287770">Detective: Rivera not entirely truthful at first <span class="date">[4/21/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=287394">Former inmate says Rivera pointed to himself as the killer <span class="date">[4/17/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=287303">Rivera changed stories quickly, officer says<span class="date">[04/17/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=286654">Jury selection part art, part science <span class="date">[04/17/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=287032">Multiple changes in story led officials to accuse Rivera<span class="date">[04/16/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=286679">Staker trial begins with grim details</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>