Witness Details Pattern Linking Hairs, Simpson

With the end of the prosecution’s case in sight, Deputy Dist. Atty. Marcia Clark on Friday began to lead an FBI expert through a painstaking effort to braid a handful of hairs and fibers into the delicate final links in a chain of circumstantial evidence linking O.J. Simpson to the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman.

Graphically compelling and more readily comprehensible than the baroque colloquies on DNA that have consumed much of the prosecutors’ case, the pattern of so-called trace evidence Clark laid out was among the most damaging evidence yet presented against the former football star.

The testimony by Special Agent Doug Deedrick, who heads the hair and fiber unit of the bureau’s Washington, D.C., crime lab, was closely followed by the jurors, many of whom took copious notes. They also peered intently at the agent’s charts, which displayed strands of hair magnified 250 times. Earlier, the FBI expert had cautioned that his specialty is “not an exact science,” and relies in some measure on the analyst’s skill. He also noted that his firmest conclusion is that a certain hair or fiber “could have” come from a particular source.

Deedrick testified for less than three hours during Friday’s half-day session. But the soft-spoken FBI agent, who has given evidence in more than 400 cases, presented findings that appeared to tie Simpson more closely to the killings than ever before. Among the most telling of his conclusions were:

* That the blue knit watch cap found near Goldman’s feet at the Bundy Drive crime scene bore numerous hairs that “exhibit the same microscopic characteristics” as those contained in a so-called “reference sample” taken from Simpson’s head. Nine of the hairs were found inside the cap and two were recovered from the outside. Deedrick testified the large number of hairs inside the cap suggested Simpson had worn it.

* A single hair closely resembling Simpson’s was found on Goldman’s shirt, and Deedrick testified that it probably was deposited there through direct contact. When Clark attempted to suggest through a question that the hair was left on Goldman’s shirt when his assailant grabbed him by the throat from behind, Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito sustained an objection by defense attorney F. Lee Bailey. Later, however, Deedrick testified, “I wouldn’t expect to find anything there if there was no physical contact.”

* Thirty-five hairs that had been “forcibly removed” and were similar to Nicole Simpson’s were found on Goldman’s shirt and similar fragments were found on his pants.

* Forcibly removed hair fragments closely resembling those of Simpson’s ex-wife also were found on the glove recovered at the crime scene.

* Finally, Deedrick said a 12-inch hair with the same microscopic characteristics as those of Nicole Simpson was found on the bloody glove discovered on the grounds of Simpson’s Brentwood estate. When Clark asked whether the hair had been “naturally shed or forcibly removed,” Deedrick described it as “cut and torn.”

In her opening statement to the jury in January, Clark foreshadowed the part the recovered hairs would play in the prosecution’s case against Simpson. But the distinction Deedrick made between hairs that had been “naturally shed” and those that had been “forcibly removed” was new to the jurors. The phrase suggested images of violent struggle, and Clark attempted to use it to support the prosecutors’ theory that Nicole Simpson’s head was yanked back by the hair, baring her throat to the assailant, who slashed it, leaving her to bleed to death.

Similarly, Clark used a series of hypothetical questions concerning the distribution of hairs at the crime scene to bolster the prosecution’s theory that Nicole Simpson was murdered first by a killer who then attacked Goldman.

“The directionality went from Nicole Brown Simpson to Ronald Goldman,” Deedrick answered at one point.

In another instance, Clark asked that the FBI expert “assume the following events . . . that the killer pulled back Nicole’s head with his left hand in order to slit her throat with his right hand, and then went over to Ron Goldman for final attack, touching him in the process with the hand that held Nicole’s hair by the head. Could that account for the hairs [resembling Nicole Simpson’s] that you found on Ron Goldman’s shirt?”

“Yes, that could account for the presence of those hairs,” Deedrick said.

Clark went on to suggest that no hairs resembling Goldman’s were found on Nicole Simpson’s bloody dress because she never struggled with her assailant, who cut her throat while she lay face down.

“The more limited the contact, the less likely that hair and fiber evidence might be found,” Deedrick agreed.

Deedrick’s interpretation of his findings appeared to buttress the scenario of the killings sketched out earlier this month, when Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, the Los Angeles County coroner, testified that Nicole Brown Simpson was unconscious and unable to resist when her killer drew a knife across her throat.

“My opinion is that Miss Brown was on the ground, face down, when this wound was inflicted,” the coroner said. “My opinion is that the head was extended backwards and the knife was used to cause this incise slash-stab wound from the left to the right.”

Deedrick’s second day of testimony was delayed by a 20-minute hearing outside the jury’s presence over defense objections to his use of the word match to describe his conclusions on the evidence. After listening to arguments from both sides, Ito, quoting from Webster’s 3rd International Dictionary, agreed with Bailey’s contention that match connoted a specificity unwarranted with hair and fiber evidence. That ruling forced the FBI agent to repeat the circumlocution “exhibited the same microscopic characteristics” like a mantra throughout his testimony.

Bailey objected four times Thursday to the use of the word match, but Clark continued to argue that it was appropriate. During Friday’s debate over whether it could be used, Ito looked icily at Clark at one point and said, “Isn’t this a little late?” Clark used the phrase “I apologize” several times, as she tried to explain why she had made no written submission supporting her position on the word’s use before Friday.

The contentiousness of the moment was exacerbated when LAPD Detective Tom Lange’s pager went off, and Ito instructed a courtroom bailiff to confiscate it.

Twice during Friday’s abbreviated session, a photo of Goldman’s bloody body was displayed on the courtroom’s large overhead screen. Each time, the victim’s sister, Kim Goldman, who is in the courtroom every day, averted her eyes. At one point, Lange, who was seated nearby, turned to reassure her.

Simpson looked at the photo and shook his head with a look of sadness. He spent much of the session taking notes on a legal pad and occasionally conferred with his attorneys, particularly Bailey, when Deedrick was discussing his hair characteristics.

The trial is in recess until Wednesday, when Clark is expected to complete her examination of Deedrick. After Bailey cross-examines him, the jury will hear from Juditha Brown, Nicole Simpson’s mother, who will testify concerning the eyeglasses she left at Mezzaluna restaurant the night of the June 12, 1994, killings, and about a telephone call to her daughter shortly before her murder.

Then, the prosecution will rest.

* BATTLING OVER JURORS: Transcripts reveal lawyers’ jockeying to mold the jury. A30