Inge Lotz Murder: The shoeprint expert
Paul Ryder, a chemist and footprint expert with Forensic Science Service, a state agency in the United Kingdom today shot down a local police officer’s opinion that a bloody mark left at the crime scene matched the sole of a show owned by Fred van der Vyver.
He said that the bloody mark was not consistent with a shoeprint in general or with Fred’s shoe in particular.
Ryder said: “In my opinion, the mark was not made by a shoe. It is more likely to have been made by a blood-stained implement carried into the bathroom and placed on the floor.”
The defence team had asked Ryder to compare the marks with photographs of the sports shoe print and from this he wrote two reports. However, he only saw the shoe in person on Sunday.
The defence disputes a claim by former state footprint expert, Bruce Bartholomew, that the shape of the mark and four dots corresponded with the shape of the sole and four grains of sand lodged in a groove.
Ryder said that he had studied the photo’s, statements by Barthomew and that of Peta Davitz of the police biology unit and other statements by Dr Rachel Adendorff (the district surgeon who performed the autopsy and told the police to look for a hammer). It is interesting to note at this point that Peta Davitz found no evidence of blood on the shoe.
In addition, Ryder corresponded with US footprint expert William Bodziak who also disputed the states evidence. When asked, Ryder stated that he had not been influenced by Bodziak’s opinions and he also denied that he was being influenced to come to certain conclusions by the defence.
Explaining why the mark was not made by a shoe, he said when a sole stained with blood was stepped on the blood would be forced to the edges of the pattern and into the sole’s grooves.
If a person walked with a bloody shoe, each impression would be fainter than the previous one. The stain would also show the pattern of the sole of the shoe/ This mark did not have any of these characteristics.
Further he said that the four grains of sand in the shoe were lodged too deeply in the shoe to make contact with the floor. So they could not have created the four dots which emerged after the chemical dye treatment.
The time the shoe was confiscated and the absence of blood on it also cast a shadow on the sand grain theory.
Prosecutor Carine Teunissen asked him if it was possible that the killer had taken off his shoe when he washed and put it down without noticing blood had spilled onto the sole. Ryder said he did not “quite follow” her scenario, but he thought the mark was most likely created by a bloodstained instrument that was dropped and fell on its side.
When asked for details regarding his observations, he said that he had not performed any experiments but had drawn his conclusions from the photo’s.
Judge Deon van Zyl commented that the shape of the mark did seem to match that of the shoe and asked Ryder to compare the shoe to a transparency of the mark and to testify about his findings later.
Comments:
I am not really sure what to feel about this.
Two eminent footprint experts have disputed the police theory but I can’t help to think that it could be flawed. If they only had access to photo’s of the shoe, this raises doubts regarding to the accuracy of their testimony.
How can they be sure of their findings when all they had to go on were the photo’s? I am sure this is why Judge van Zyl asked Ryder to examine things further.
My gut feeling from just reading the press reports is that this evidence is a little shaky for the defence. It is not entirely convincing. However there is still more testimony to come, so we shall see if things become more solid.
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