Testimony focuses on DNA, cell phone calls

Friday’s slate of technical experts attempted to shore up the state’s case against quadruple murder suspect Wesley Jonathan Williams. He is accused of shooting ex-girlfriend Danielle Baker to death, and using duct tape to suffocate her three young sons, two of whom he fathered.

None of Friday’s witnesses were able to definitely tie the defendant to the crime scene.

Special mitochondrial DNA tests, for instance, excluded Williams as a contributor in an DNA mix found at the ends of duct tape used to bind Amarion Baker, the one-year-old Williams and Baker shared. That revelation was offered up by Gina M. Pineda, a DNA expert with a private firm, GMP Forensic Consulants.

That expert also excluded Williams’ girlfriend, Bridgette Kelly, and several others whose DNA was collected and compared to the mix, which had at least two contributors.

Crime lab analyst Beth Rankin of FDLE was unable to link any latent prints to Williams.

The prosecution’s strongest showing on the day may have been the records related to Williams cell phone use in the hours prior to Baker’s death. An expert in communications who once worked for the White House in that field, Lee Ross explained how cell phone towers function and their accuracy in recording which calls utilize which towers.

Williams said he was at home in Sneads in the early morning hours of March. 17, 2005, when the killings are believed to have occurred. He has denied calling Baker from the Marianna area just ahead of the killings. But his cell phone records indicate his phone “pinged” off a Marianna tower near Baker’s apartment twice during that time.

Ross also testified that the Nextel network is a self-contained system and essentially unique, in that it doesn’t share towers with other networks. The defense asserts that false “roaming” information could account for the tower reading.

The prosecutor on Friday also played two taped statements Williams gave police early in the investigation. In those, he denied having made multiple calls to Baker that day. But his cell phone record shows he called her cell or house phone nine times, starting at just before 1 a.m. and ending at 2:26 a.m.

This was moments before Baker’s neighbors heard suspicious noises next door, they testified Thursday.

The last call and the one before it, at 1:35 a.m, both utilized a Nextel tower near Baker’s home. The nine calls varied in length from five seconds to around nine minutes.

While experts dominated Friday afternoon’s testimony, local law enforcement started the day.

Jackson County Sheriff Lou Roberts was chief of police in Marianna when the killings occurred, and Virgil Watson, who works for him now at the sheriff’s office, was a Marianna police officer and the case agent in the multiple homicide.

Both noted Williams’ seeming lack of emotion on being told of the deaths, echoing statements Roberts and a victim’s advocate made on Thursday.

Defense attorney Walter Smith challenged that observation, recalling Roberts’ testimony that he had in fact asked Williams to be strong so that he could help investigators as they tried to sort out the crime.

Prosecutor Larry Basford has at least one more crime scene expert to call when the trial resumes at 9 a.m. Monday, and could conclude his presentations that day.

Smith will take over from there.