Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Being Van Gogh

Not your usual piece of evidence.
When a 32-year-old woman was sexually assaulted near Our Lady of the Lake University on March 29 2008, she managed to bite off her attacker’s right earlobe.

Through DNA technology using the earlobe, authorities were able to link 31-year-old Daniel Martinez to the rape.

During his trial Tuesday, prosecutors played Martinez’ police department interview for the jury. It was recorded on January 13 when Martinez was arrested after the DNA match was made. Throughout the interview Martinez repeatedly insisted he could not remember the attack.

(from KSAT-12)

Good presence of mind to hang on to that earlobe. I'm glad the victim was able to keep her wits about her even while being assaulted.

2 comments:

Dave said...

Throughout the interview Martinez repeatedly insisted he could not remember the attack.

Yes, but could he remember showing up to the police interview without an earlobe?

Albatross said...

I wonder if during the interview the cops took a very long and curious look at his lobeless ear, held the bitten-off piece next to it, scratched their chins a lot, and said, "Hmmmmmmmm".

You know, just to mess with him.