Prosecution rests in Stampley trial
The prosecution rested its murder case against Trucko Stampley after a firearms expert testified Wednesday that bullets recovered from the bodies of Marie and Denise Pedescleaux and Charles and Ann Colvin were fired from a gun that police say they took from Stampley when he was arrested in April 2007.
Louisiana State Police Crime Lab firearms examiner Pat Lane also told the 12-person jury that spent shell casings found at the Pedescleaux and Colvin homes were shot from that same .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol.
Attorneys for the 24-year-old Stampley, who is charged with four counts of first-degree murder, will begin presenting their case Thursday.
Stampley’s lead attorney, Daryl Gold, said after court he could not say whether Stampley will testify.
In court, Gold challenged Lane’s conclusions, telling him in front of the jury that the National Academy of Science stated in a 2009 report that it cannot be said with absolute certainty that a particular bullet was fired from a particular gun — only that they have similar characteristics.
Lane, however, stuck to his guns.
“This firearm is the source of the bullets and ... casings,’’ he testified before leaving the witness stand.
Shortly before Lane took the stand, experts in DNA analysis and fingerprint comparison testified that Denise Pedescleaux’s blood was discovered on Stampley’s tennis shoes, and his thumb print was found on a receipt in a car stolen from the Pedescleaux home.
Marie Pedescleaux, 82, and her 46-year-old daughter, Denise, were found shot to death April 25, 2007, in their Crown Avenue home in Glen Oaks.
Two days later, Charles Colvin and his wife, Ann, both 73, were discovered fatally shot in their Thibodeaux Avenue residence in Goodwood Estates.
Stampley, 24, of Baton Rouge, has pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity.
State Police Crime Lab forensic DNA analyst Myles Robichaux, who testified that Denise Pedescleaux’s blood was found on Stampley’s black and grey Air Jordan shoes, also told the jury that Stampley could not be excluded as a contributor of DNA material found on Ann Colvin’s wallet.
Robichaux said the statistical probability that the blood found on Stampley’s left shoe belongs to someone other than Denise Pedescleaux is 1 in 144 trillion.
Rebecca Benson, a former State Police Crime Lab technician who specialized in fingerprint comparison, testified that Stampley’s right thumb print was discovered on a Walmart receipt found in Denise Pedescleaux’s Toyota Avalon. The car was recovered in Houma, where Stampley’s then-girlfriend lived.
Before testimony began Wednesday and with the jury not in the courtroom, Stampley apologized to state District Judge Bonnie Jackson for his in-court tirade Tuesday and asked that he be allowed back into the ninth-floor courtroom.
Jackson, who on Tuesday ordered Stampley to listen to the remainder of the trial from an 11th-floor holding cell, refused to rescind her order.
“Yesterday was not a good day Mr. Stampley,’’ Jackson told Stampley, who on Wednesday was shackled and dressed in orange and white prison garb. Stampley had been wearing a suit before he was banned from the courtroom.
“I apologize,’’ Stampley told the judge. “I had a lot on my mind.’’
Jackson said she has “an obligation to make sure this trial continues to run smoothly.’’
“I don’t want these jurors sitting here, wondering what you’re going to do next,’’ she said.
Stampley cursed his ex-girlfriend and threw a notepad at her while she was testifying Tuesday for the prosecution.