Lance Conway Wood was standing within three feet of a Southern Utah State College student when the student was murdered.
That's according to blood-spatter analysis and testimony in 4th District Court on Tuesday, the seventh day of testimony in Wood's capital homicide trial.Wood, 21, is accused in the brutal bludgeoning death of Gordon Ray Church on Nov. 22, 1988. Testimony Tuesday before Judge Boyd L. Park contradicts much of what Wood told investigators on Nov. 23, the day he led them to Church's body, and thereafter.
In repeated questioning after the murder, Wood told investigators that he stayed in the car while Michael Anthony Archuleta killed Church in remote Dog Valley in southern Millard County.
Wood said he only exited the car when Archuleta asked him to help bury the body.
But according to Robert M. Bell, a blood-spatter expert and homicide investigator for the Sacramento County, Calif., Sheriff's Department, the blood on Wood's jacket and pants indicates that he was within three feet of the victim when Church received multiple blows.
"The wearer of this jacket had to be in close proximity to this assault," Bell said.
Bell explained that powerful, violent blows produce smaller drops of flying blood. Those drops _ 1 millimeter in diameter or less _ fly a maximum of three feet. Wood's clothes had drops that small on them.
Furthermore, a splash of blood drops, like shotgun pellets, spreads out over distance. Some groups of blood spots on Wood's clothes are close together, and, therefore, flew only a short distance, Bell told prosecutor Carvel Harward and the 12-member jury.
Bell said, however, that the blood spatter does not conclusively indicate participation in the crime.
Defense attorney Marcus Taylor, on cross-examination, referred to a line of blood drops on Wood's jacket. Drops fly off weapons covered in blood and form a dotted line when they strike something. Bell said those drops came from a different person who was swinging a weapon.
But investigators believe more than one weapon was used to kill Church. They found what they believe to be the victim's blood on several independent parts of a tire jack.
Archuleta, 27, was found guilty in December for his part in the slaying and was sentenced to die. He had attempted to downplay his role in the murder and put the blame on Wood.
The prosecution expects to finish its case Wednesday, and Taylor said his defense may take as little as half a day, but probably more. Wood is expected to take the stand in his own defense. If things go quickly, a verdict may be reached before the weekend.