Time Knott Died Remains a Mystery

A coroner’s pathologist whose testimony was cited as virtually worthless by jurors in Craig Peyer’s first murder trial gave a stronger performance Friday in Peyer’s retrial but was still unable to estimate Cara Knott’s time of death.

Lee Bockhacker, who performed an autopsy on Knott hours after her strangled body was found in a ravine Dec. 28, 1986, was harshly criticized after Peyer’s first trial by jurors who labeled him the weakest link in the prosecution’s case.

The jurors said Bockhacker seemed confused and ill-prepared on the stand and complained that his inability to offer an approximate time of death hampered them greatly as they attempted to reach a verdict.

Concise Responses

On Friday, Bockhacker provided concise and deliberate responses to questions from Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul Pfingst. He also appeared organized and unflappable during an hourlong cross-examination by defense attorney Robert Grimes.

But Grimes did manage to show some inconsistencies in Bockhacker’s testimony. And he raised questions about the pathologist’s failure to take a liver temperature--a technique sometimes used to determine a victim’s time of death--immediately after Knott’s body was found.

In Peyer’s first trial, Grimes made an issue of the liver temperature, arguing that, if one had been taken at the scene, rather than hours later, it would have cleared his client. He revived that issue Friday, and made Bockhacker concede that some pathologists view a liver temperature as a useful tool when the time of death is in question.

Further, Grimes asked Bockhacker whether it is best to take that temperature as close to the time of death as possible.

“That would be preferable,” replied Bockhacker, who said he personally believes the liver test is unreliable.

Although the exchange may have raised doubts about Bockhacker’s judgment, Grimes was limited from obtaining testimony that left jurors in Peyer’s first trial frustrated by the pathologist’s failure to cite a time of death.

During the first trial, Grimes asked Bockhacker to make calculations based on the liver temperature in an effort to estimate when Knott died. Those calculations indicated only that Knott was killed within 25 hours of the time the reading was taken at 1 p.m. Dec. 28--a range jurors found unhelpful.

On Friday, however, Pfingst effectively barred Grimes from forcing Bockhacker to make those calculations. In a motion argued before the day’s testimony, Pfingst said it was unfair to force Bockhacker to draw conclusions from a test he finds unreliable. Superior Court Judge Richard Huffman did not rule on the motion, but when Grimes ventured into that area during his cross-examination, the judge granted an objection from Pfingst.

On Patrol Along I-15

Peyer, 38, was on patrol along Interstate 15 the night Knott dropped from sight while on her way home to El Cajon. Prosecutors say Peyer stopped Knott at the Mercy Road exit, strangled her and threw her body from an abandoned highway bridge near the off-ramp. Knott’s body was found Dec. 28, 1986, in a dry creek bed 65 feet below the old U.S. 395 bridge. Her Volkswagen Beetle was parked nearby with the keys in the ignition and the driver’s window rolled partly down.

In February, jurors in Peyer’s first trial deadlocked 7 to 5 in favor of conviction. Knott was a 20-year-old student at San Diego State University at the time of her death.

Also Friday, Bockhacker testified that a marks on Knott’s neck were consistent with a rope found in the trunk of Peyer’s patrol car. The rope is about three-eighths of an inch in diameter; Bockhacker said the marks were “in the range” of between one-fourth to three-eighths of an inch wide.

Detailed Account of Injuries

The pathologist provided a detailed account of the many injuries on Knott’s body and noted that tiny hemorrhages in her eyes and the presence of blood in her right ear canal were consistent with death by strangulation.

In another discrepancy pinpointed by Grimes, Bockhacker acknowledged that he testified in Peyer’s preliminary hearing that it was unclear whether the many bruises and scrapes on Knott’s body had occurred before or after death. At the hearing, Bockhacker testified that only the marks on Knott’s neck had undisputedly occurred before death.

On Friday, however, Bockhacker testified that the minor amount of hemorrhaging evident beneath injuries to her right side meant they occurred after her death.

Jurors also learned during Friday’s cross-examination that Bockhacker changed his testimony about having taken Knott’s liver temperature. During the preliminary hearing, Bockhacker testified that he had not taken the temperature. But, in Peyer’s first trial, the pathologist said he had discovered notes indicating that he in fact took the temperature before conducting the autopsy.

Bockhacker said Friday that he discovered those notes the day he testified in Peyer’s first trial earlier this year. But previously, Bockhacker said he stumbled upon his error just after the preliminary hearing in early 1987. That discrepancy, however, was not addressed by Grimes.

The pathologist was also questioned by Grimes about a second test sometimes used to measure how long a person has been dead, one that analyzes the vitreous fluid in the eye. Bockhacker said he took two readings of the fluid 22 hours apart.

Bockhacker testified that he has little faith in the test and that it was not useful in the case. But, when Grimes asked him whether the significance of the test was diluted by his waiting 22 hours between each reading, the pathologist conceded, “That contributed to it.”

In other testimony Friday, Scott Koenig said he saw a CHP cruiser pull over a light-colored Volkswagen at the Mercy Road off-ramp on the night Knott disappeared. With minor exceptions, Koenig’s account mirrored that given by his wife, Traci, who appeared in court Monday. Both are new witnesses.

Koenig, 25, said the traffic stop occurred between 8:30 and 9 p.m. and recalled that he found it unusual. He said it struck him as “very strange” that the Volkswagen was proceeding down the Mercy Road ramp because it was a dark area. He said he “figured the CHP officer might be angry because the car was going down” to an unlighted area and possibly placing the patrolman in danger.

Tells of Doubts

Under cross-examination by Grimes, Koenig said he did not think to come forward sooner because he only recently concluded that the Volkswagen he saw stopped might have belonged to Cara Knott. He said it was not until he was interviewed by detectives--contacted by his wife after the hung jury in Peyer’s first trial--that he “put it all together.”

“I still had some doubt,” Koenig said. “I just couldn’t believe a peace officer could do something like that.”

Testimony Friday was confined to the morning. In the afternoon, a closed hearing was held despite a request by a newspaper’s attorney that Huffman open the proceeding to the press and public.