the assailant is right-handed. and since michel escoto is left-handed the implication for the jury is clear. he couldn t be the killer. what s more, a dna expert said she expected to find escoto s dna on the victim s clothes. after all, they were husband and wife. but she found something more. there were several markers where his dna is not represented. dna traces for two different males and, get this, traces for a female. to standby lawyer terry lenamon, that could mean only one person. yolanda cerrillo, escoto s old girlfriend who said she was with him before and after the murder. who got immunity. lenamon says the first thing to know about yolanda is she s a liar. first, she knew nothing about the crime. then she said she did but only after the fact. the final story, he said, put yolanda front and center in planning the murder. lo and behold we have a story that comes about, about
testimony, she put all of that at risk. how worried are you right now that you could go to jail for perjury? i m very worried. i know that i m facing prison time and there will be severe penalty for what i do and i don t want to be ripped away from my little boy. i have everything to lose. a year after daker s conviction, the hearing began on the motion for a new trial. daker again, representing himself called the doctor, the dna expert to the stand. if a man sleeps in a blanket, can his hair transfer to the blanket? yes. and if a man has sex in a blanket, can his hair transfer to a blanket? yes. the doctor laid the scientific foundation, but daker s chances really hinged on lottie. a hush came over the courtroom as a nervous lottie made her way to the stand and
especially in the setting of decomposition, you try to collect as much tracer evidence as you can. i m not a dna expert but our technology has come far so just like any other suspicious death, fingernails, hair, anything, you never know what can be found with further testing and even with decomposition sometimes bugs found on the body or other tissue changes, that can tell you, bugs, soil elements, that, they can work backwards to deduce a better timeline for when she was killed. he had a few distinct tattoos but depending on what the body
business, a smoothie store, with carol s divorce money. at one point, even introducing carol as his business partner. so was he obsessed with carol? his behavior with this former girlfriend when she tried to break up with him certainly seemed obsessive to her, she said, he wouldn t leave her alone, kept sending her e-mails. i m wondering what was this man capable of. was he going to come up and stalk? was he going to do something mean? was he going to hurt me or hurt my family? i felt threatened is what it felt like. and i was scared. more defense questions? how did jim knapp s fingerprints wind up on those financial documents that were printed the day of the murder and found slipped inside a magazine sitting on carol s kitchen counter? and how did knapp s dna get mixed with carol s blood in a sample taken from a doorknob, leaving the house? that was evidence item #805. they called a dna expert.
and work in idaho. how does it feel to be recognized as a dna expert? it s fun. i did fruit flies, nobody invited me to talk on television. this is the expert, doctor greg hampikian amy fruit fly geneticist who now spreads his infectious enthusiasm at boise state university. but his work is not all done in the classroom, in fact his own path changed back in 2004 when he was asked to test some dna which would lead a innocent man to be released from jail in georgia. he wrote a book on that. and just like that, the doctor found a new calling. hampikian in is now in high demand. he was in a team credited for freeing mr. knox. and in a spare time, he is the