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At hearing, a question: Which knife was used to kill Stephanie Crowe?
By John Springer
SAN DIEGO, California (Court TV) -- A knife linked to three teenagers once suspected of killing 12-year-old Stephanie Crowe cannot be ruled the murder weapon, a coroner testified Thursday, saying any number of knives made by different manufacturers could have been used in the deadly attack. The knife in question, a "Best Defense" brand knife with a nearly 6-inch blade was a major topic of discussion during testimony by San Diego County coroner Dr. Brian Blackbourne at drifter Richard Tuite's probable cause hearing. Now in its second day, the hearing is to determine whether prosecutors have sufficient evidence to try Tuite for Stephanie's January 1998 murder in the bedroom of her home in Escondido. Michael Crowe, her now 19-year-old brother, was charged with the killing along with friends Joshua Treadway and Aaron Houser until tests revealed the presence of Stephanie's blood on a red shirt police seized from Tuite the day of the killing. Although no knife was ever linked to Tuite, police initially believed that a "Best Defense" brand knife found under Treadway's bed was the murder weapon. Treadway confessed to police that Houser gave him the knife to hide six days after the killing, but later said his statement was coerced. Blackbourne testified Thursday that Stephanie was attacked in her bed and stabbed or cut nine times. Deep stab wounds on the left side of her chest and back right shoulder punctured an artery and vein, causing massive bleeding. "Would the phrase 'She bled to death' be a fair vernacular phrase to describe what happened to Stephanie?" prosecutor David Druliner asked. "Yes," responded Blackbourne, who performed the autopsy. Defense lawyers for Tuite, now 34, questioned Blackbourne extensively about the consistency between wounds and the "Best Defense" knife. Blackbourne said one of the fatal stab wounds was the exact depth and diameter of the blade he examined, but other wounds were consistent with a larger knife. The defense claims that police had the correct suspects originally and that the physical evidence is consistent with Treadway's confession that Houser and Michael Crowe killed Stephanie while he acted as a lookout. Charges against Crowe, Houser and Treadway were dismissed without prejudice and could be reinstated, but few expect that to happen. Under questioning by prosecutors, the coroner noted that one of the two fatal stab wounds was 1 inch deeper than the length of the "Best Defense" knife blade. But the defense quickly countered that the measurements have a margin of error of 5 or 10 percent and that a knife plunged with force through Stephanie's comforter could have gone deeper without leaving skin surface abrasions because of the fabric. "I'm sure there are thousands of knives that could have done this," Blackbourne said when prosecutors tried to sum up his testimony. Blackbourne testified that Stephanie was attacked in her bed between 10 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. by someone who apparently surprised her. She sat up at one point after the wounds were inflicted, fell to the floor and tried to crawl to the door. In fact, her head protruded through the open doorway into the hallway, Blackbourne said. San Diego prosecutors, who passed the case up to the state attorney general's office prosecutors now handling the case, originally argued that Michael Crowe would have seen his sister's body if he had gone to the kitchen for a glass of milk at 4 a.m. as he claimed. None of the five people in the house heard Stephanie's likely screams, a fact the defense says indicates the teenagers held her down and muffled her cries as she was being stabbed. The hearing is anticipated to last about two weeks. Judge Gale Kaneshiro is expected to order the case held over for trial after she hears evidence of the blood on Tuite's shirt and the defendant's bizarre behavior on the night of the killing. Witnesses will likely testify that Tuite, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic with numerous interactions with law enforcement, knocked on several doors looking for an ex-girlfriend named Tracy. One neighbor of the Crowe family is expected to testify that he saw Tuite standing at the bottom of the Crowes' driveway after being told to leave or the police would be contacted. Cheryl Crowe, Stephanie's mother, was excluded from the courtroom at the request of the defense because she will be a prosecution witness during the hearing. The second witness, a criminalist who examined the red turtleneck seized from Tuite by police, began testimony just before the lunch break. The defense may eventually have to offer a theory to a jury about how three specks of Stephanie's blood got on Tuite's shirt.
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