Blood Marks Jibe With Lam’s Story, Expert Says

A criminalist testified Monday that blood marks in the office of slain Cal State Fullerton professor Edward Lee Cooperman are not inconsistent with defendant Minh Van Lam’s version of the physicist’s shooting death.

Lam, 21, a former student of Cooperman’s, is charged with murder in the Oct. 13, 1984, death of the physicist. The professor died of a .25-caliber gunshot wound to the left side of his neck. Lam contends that the gun went off by accident when the professor grabbed his arm to show him how to aim the weapon.

Lam’s trial before Orange County Superior Court Judge Richard J. Beacom is in its second week and is expected to end early next week.

‘Reasonable’ Interpretation

Richard H. Fox, a private consultant and former Ventura County criminalist who was hired by the defense, told jurors that the blood marks alone do not show where in the office the shooting occurred.

But Fox said a “reasonable” interpretation of what happened was the scenario defense attorney Alan May has given the jury--that after he accidentally shot the professor, Lam laid Cooperman down in a corner. Then, May says, when Lam left, Cooperman dragged himself across the room, leaving blood on his desk, the telephone, a file cabinet behind the desk and on the wall directly opposite where Lam says the shooting occurred.

However, when pressed on cross-examination, Fox said that he could not completely rule out that the prosecution’s theory was “not inconsistent” with the blood marks.

Fox’s testimony lasted most of the day and prompted dramatic demonstrations by May and Deputy Dist. Atty. Mel Jensen of how Cooperman might have been shot. But those were not the only dramatics of the day. A Vietnamese psychiatrist testified later that Lam panicked, left the office and went to a movie partly because he feared Cooperman’s ghost.

Cooperman’s colleagues and friends believe he was the victim of a political assassination. The physicist, who was active in providing scientific and humanitarian aid to Vietnam, had told friends about death threats he received in the three months before he was shot, they have said.

Fear of Assassination

Part of the defense theory is that Cooperman’s fear of assassination may have been the reason he insisted on practicing self-defense. Lam says the two were practicing self-defense when the gun went off.

The prosecution contends that Cooperman was behind his desk and Lam in front of it when the gun was fired. Lam claims the two were sitting in chairs facing each other on the north side of the room, away from the desk, when the shot was fired.

But Jensen hit hard at Fox during cross-examination, saying that there were no blood drops in front of the chair where Lam said Cooperman was sitting. Nor was there blood on the chair Lam said he was sitting in when the gun went off, Jensen said..

Fox insisted that the blood patterns were not inconsistent with Lam’s version, because Lam had said the professor was leaning left when the gun went off. That would put the blood spurts in the area where Cooperman came to rest later, not on the chairs or Lam’s upper pants leg and shirt, which also had no blood, Fox said.

May replayed for jurors a videotape of Lam re-enacting the incident for police two days after the shooting. May claims the videotape proves that Lam told police the professor was leaning left when the gun went off. But Jensen, through his questions to Fox, contends the tape shows that Lam said the professor leaned forward, not to the left.

“Isn’t it likely the shooting occurred where most of the blood was found (behind the desk)?” Jensen asked Fox.

Meticulous Questioning

No, Fox said. The initial spurt from Cooperman’s wound could have been in the area Cooperman covered with his body, in the corner and away from the desk, he said.

Fox testified that the drops the prosecution contends came when blood spurted from Cooperman’s neck are more likely just drippings from when the professor stood above the desk later (when May contends Cooperman pulled himself up from the floor in an attempt to reach the telephone).

May, using color photographs and a drawing of the room, meticulously went through each area of the room where blood was found. Fox said that each step of May’s scenario was either “a reasonable” or “likely” interpretation of the blood stains.

Fox also testified that there were no signs of a struggle in the office, because there were no blood spatterings that appeared to be “flung” onto either the walls or the ceiling. The prosecution does not contend that a struggle took place. Jensen claims that Lam was far enough away from Cooperman that he did not get blood on his shirt or the upper part of his pants.

May also called to the witness stand Tran Tung, a psychiatrist from Washington, D.C., who has interviewed Lam twice since the shooting. Tung testified that Vietnamese culture has taught Lam to fear recrimination from police even when a person is innocent. That fear, combined with a fear of Cooperman’s ghost, likely caused Lam to behave as he did after the shooting, Tung said.

Tung added that Lam returned to Cooperman’s office after the movie out of a sense of moral duty.

“Dr. Cooperman was his teacher, and in our culture the teacher is even greater than the father,” Tung said.

Tung also defended Lam’s telephone call to Cooperman’s widow, Klaaske Cooperman, from the Fullerton City Jail the day after the shooting. To this day, Tung said, Lam does not understand why Klaaske Cooperman was upset with him about the telephone call.

Jensen’s cross-examination of Tung is scheduled to begin today.