Scent Machine Convinces O.C. Murder Jury

In a murder case unprecedented in California because it hinged largely on evidence from a scent machine, an emotional jury on Thursday convicted a 20-year-old man of killing an Irvine woman nearly three years ago in a crime that stunned residents of the Turtle Rock neighborhood.

Earl Rhoney, who was a high school student at the time of the killing, now faces a possible sentence of life in prison without parole for the murder of 46-year-old Patricia Lea Pratt.

“You took a bad, bad person off the streets,” the victim’s husband, Paul Pratt, told jurors as they hugged each other and wept outside the courtroom after the verdict was read.

A bloodhound identified Rhoney from scent extracted from the victim’s sweatshirt, preserved for nine months in an evidence freezer.

Investigators used a vacuum device that draws human scent from fabric, concentrates it, then transfers it to a gauze pad. It allows investigators to carry the scent to a bloodhound in the field without risking contamination of a key piece of evidence such as a victim’s clothing.

Police targeted Rhoney, then 17, as a suspect two weeks after the slaying when he was linked to a burglary in Turtle Rock, near where he lived with his grandfather. A bloodhound named Duchess and her trainer, Larry Harris, were called in a few weeks later to help with the investigation.

On the day of Rhoney’s release from Orange County Juvenile Hall in Orange, where he had served time on burglary and weapons charges, Duchess and Harris were waiting outside.

Investigators unsealed the gauze pad and gave it to the dog to sniff. Within minutes, Duchess picked a surprised Rhoney out of a crowd at The City Shopping Center across the street, where he had stopped to make a phone call.

The use of bloodhound tracking evidence has long been established in courts across the nation, provided certain conditions are met. But the Pratt case marked the first time that evidence from a scent machine had been admitted in a California murder trial, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Debbie Lloyd, who prosecuted the case.

The prosecution contended that Rhoney was burglarizing Pratt’s home on Jan. 20, 1994, when she returned from a walk and surprised him. Her husband found her strangled and bludgeoned body when he returned home from a business meeting about midnight.

The murder trial lasted 2 1/2 months, with the bulk of the testimony hinging on technical aspects of bloodhound tracking and the machine. After a day and a half of deliberations, jurors found Rhoney, who was being tried as an adult, guilty of first-degree murder.

As the verdict was read, the boyish-looking Rhoney stood next to his lawyer with his head bowed. Several jurors quietly wept.

“He looks pretty wholesome, so that did make it hard,” juror Debbie Robson said later. “But we felt justice was done. This gives the family a chance to go back to their lives, and it gives Earl a chance to change himself.”

Immediately after leaving the courtroom, jurors had an emotional encounter with Paul Pratt and the victim’s mother, 79-year-old Beatrice Kell. Both had faithfully attended the trial sessions.

Many jurors broke into tears when Kell showed them a large gold-framed photograph of her daughter taken just a month before her death. “Thank you all so much,” Kell said.

The verdict included a finding that the murder occurred during a burglary, which makes Rhoney liable to a term of life in prison without possibility of parole when he is sentenced Jan. 30. He is not liable to the death penalty because he was a juvenile at the time of the crime.

Lloyd said after the verdict, “I’m very glad [the jury] didn’t discount the bloodhound evidence and found it valid.

“It’s been a long haul and a lot of work,” she said. “I’m glad about the outcome.”

But Deputy Public Defender Sharon Petrosino contended that the scent machine was unreliable and unscientific, and she said Rhoney will seek a new trial on that issue and others.

“I think it’s definitely wrong,” Petrosino said of the verdict. “This evidence hasn’t been used in any courtroom.”

Rhoney was prepared for the decision, Petrosino said, and tried to make his lawyer feel better by writing her a note that read, “Ya done good, kid.”

Jury forewoman Deborah Edwards said jurors concluded that the machine was a simple device that moved scent effectively from one object to another. The high level of expertise among investigators in the case reinforced their confidence in the evidence, she said.

“We believed . . . that Duchess really was trailing Earl Rhoney and identified him,” Edwards said. “It was a simple device. . . . We believed in Duchess.”

Jurors also believed that carpet fibers gathered from Rhoney’s shoe and belt after the crime matched carpeting from the victim’s home, Edwards said.

The defense had attacked that evidence as well, saying the carpet was one of the most common made at the time. Petrosino also argued that Rhoney’s shoe did not match prints left at the murder scene and that the victim was not strangled with the belt.

“This will go on appeal for sure,” Petrosino said. “We will ask the judge to consider a new trial.”

Edwards said jurors were not sure if they could have reached a verdict based on the dog’s performance alone. But when they considered that with all the other factors, she said, they felt the weight of the evidence supported the prosecution’s case.

Paul Pratt paid tribute to his late wife outside the courtroom. The couple had been married only 19 months when the murder occurred.

“I don’t know anybody who didn’t love her,” Pratt said. “That’s why it is so unbelievable that someone that good could have something like that happen to them. Now we can finally let her rest after this really horrible thing and get on with our lives.”