Suspected Bloody Trail, Photos Under Scrutiny in Day Four of Daniels Trial

COURT HOUSE — On July 26, day four of the murder trial of Gerald Daniels, the jury was led through a number of crime scene photos and bags of physical evidence taken from Sandman Towers after 81-year-old Wallace Savitz was found stabbed to death in his sixth floor apartment on the morning of June 14, 2004.
Two days later, Daniels, a mentally disabled resident living in the same apartment building, was arrested and charged with the crime.
Detective William Hen-fey of the county Prosecutor’s Office described how he photographed the crime scene as it appeared that day, including a suspected blood trail in the stairwell, beginning at the top of the sixth floor and running to the first floor of Sandman towers.
“Did you consider this part of the scene to be important?” defense attorney Mary Pfeifle asked Henfey as she showed the jury photos of the trail, containing 27 markers of suspected evidence.
“Yes, very,” he responded.
Daniels lived in room 203 on the second floor of the building, while James Reilly Jr., Savitz’s stepson and initially the focus of the investigation, lived in room 103 on the first floor.
Henfey said he noticed that the trail leading down the stairwell was left on every other step.
“Like having some-thing on one shoe,” he said.
Henfey also testified that he noticed that the stains were different from the second to the first floor then there were from the sixth to the second.
“They didn’t appear to be the same with what we saw above,” Henfey noted.
When Pfeifle asked if each stain was individu-ally photographed so the patterns could be com-pared, Henfey said photos were taken intermittently and only one stain be-tween the sixth and first floor was tested.
She challenged his opinion of the stains and indicated that there was no record of any distinction in the police reports. Pfeifle also questioned Henfey’s training and whether he was qualified to give an opinion on the types of stains on the stairwell trail.
Henfey had completed a crime scene investiga-tion course with the State Police, but prior to the Savitz case, Henfey said he had never recorded evidence for a murder investigation.
Lt. Eugene Taylor of the county Prosecutor’s Office testified about suspected bloodstains that caught his attention on the door handle of the second floor doorway handle and on a corner of the second floor hallway.
Taylor said that on June 14, 2004, he was called to fill in for Detective John Harkins, who was not able to respond be-cause his wife was having a baby.
“I went in his place and assisted in any way that I could,” Taylor told the jury.
After Taylor observed the scene in Savitz’s room, 606, he said he followed what appeared to be blood down the stairwell.
“When I got down to the second floor stairwell, you loose a bit of the pattern,” Taylor said. “Especially on the stair-well landing.”
Taylor said that when he was called to assist, he hadn’t been on the crime scene unit for four years. At that time, he said, he was working in the narcotics division.
The digital camera that the unit used, Taylor said, was foreign to him.
“I was used to the regular photography, not digital,” he said. “I even called Detective Harkins and had him try and ex-plain it to me over the phone.”
Taylor said that despite his efforts, the photos he took, of what appeared to be blood on the handle of the second floor stairwell door and a suspected blood stain on the corner of the second floor hall-way, did not come out as well.
Most, he said, were blurry.
In another technological snafu, Henfey testified that approximately 45 crime scene photos, the photo log were inadvertently deleted as his office began to prepare for trial.
Chief Assistant Prosecutor Rob Johnson asked both Henfey to “glove up” and show the jury numerous items taken from both Reilly’s and Daniels’ rooms.
Henfey listed that 17 items were taken from Reilly’s room, among them were various knives, bath towels and black sneakers that he presented in front of the jury, but none were found to have Savitz’s blood on them.
Taylor said that he found a navy shirt with a yellow star that appeared to be stained with blood in Daniel’s closet.
At the end of the day, the jury heard from Detective Sgt. William Kirk-bride, who was in charge of the scene, who talked about the position Savitz’s body.
A large pool of blood was just above his head, Kirkbride told the jury while gesturing to a photo of the victim. Kirkbride then pointed to Savitz’s shirt and noted how the collar was pooled up around the head.
“I felt as though the body had been moved,” he said.
After slipping on latex gloves, Kirkbride showed the jury a frying pan that was found lying just above Savtiz’s head. Ac-cording to investigators, the bloody fingerprint found inside the pan be-longed to Daniels.
Contact Suit at: (609) 886-8600 ext. 25 or lsuit@cmcherald.com