Judge allows evidence over objections of Brown's attorney

JONESBORO, Ill. -- Attorneys for murder suspect Sacha Brown lost their bid to have some evidence excluded from her trial Tuesday after a judge overruled objections involving investigators' record-keeping practices.

Brown, 32, faces charges of murder, aggravated battery of a child younger than 13 and concealing a homicide in connection with the Dec. 11, 2011, death of 4-year-old Justin Hepburn.

Defense attorney Larry Karraker has raised several objections to the admission of physical evidence in the case, including some bedding, a piece of carpet and a bottle of dishwashing liquid found near Justin's body.

Karraker's objections have centered primarily on the methods used to document who had possession of the items from the time they were collected to when the trial began last week.

Several times during the trial, Karraker has questioned witnesses about why their names or initials did not appear on bags containing evidence they had handled.

Witnesses from the Union County Sheriff's Department and the Illinois State Police have testified about record-keeping procedures involving a mix of written logs, computerized tracking systems and -- under some circumstances -- signatures directly on the evidence bags.

"Always before in my experience in handling chain-of-custody items, we are meticulous about having some sort of identification on the item itself," Karraker said Tuesday in asking Judge William Thurston to exclude several key pieces of evidence.

Karraker entered his objections early in the trial and has reiterated them several times, but Thurston reserved judgment until after Union County State's Attorney Tyler Edmonds rested his case Tuesday afternoon.

After hearing from witnesses over the course of six days, Thurston overruled Karraker's objections.

"The state has set forth a sufficiently continuous line from the coroner that morning ... back to [Union County chief deputy Scott] Harvel and how it got here today," the judge said.

Glenn Schubert, an Illinois State Police forensic scientist who testified Tuesday, addressed some of Karraker's questions about record keeping, particularly as it applied to the transfer of some items to a private laboratory for chemical analysis.

Schubert also talked about stains found on Justin's clothes, bedding and the carpet under his body.

In his opening arguments last week, Edmonds accused Brown of fracturing Justin's skull and staging the crime scene to make it appear as if he had died accidentally as a result of ingesting dishwashing liquid.

When authorities arrived at the scene the morning of Dec. 11, 2011, Justin was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt under a long-sleeved T-shirt. Both shirts were stained with pink dishwashing liquid.

Schubert said his notes indicated the right side of the front portion of each shirt was stained, but under cross-examination by Karraker, he discovered that, based on the location of the label in the T-shirt, the stain actually was on the left side of the back of the shirt.

Karraker previously has questioned the pattern of the stains on the two shirts, examining them in court and noting if both shirts were worn correctly, whoever poured dishwashing liquid on Justin's body would have to have poured some on the front of his outer shirt, then turned him over and poured some on the back of his undershirt without transferring any of the liquid from one shirt to the other in the process.

It is not clear whether Justin was wearing the shirt forward or backward when his body was found.

Lisa O'Daniel, a forensic scientist who worked for the Illinois State Police at the time of the investigation into Justin's death, said she found smudges on the dishwashing liquid bottle that could have been fingerprints, but they were not clear enough to use.

"I did not find any fingerprints on it that were suitable for comparison," she said.

O'Daniel said it is not unheard of for a person to handle a surface without leaving fingerprints, particularly if he or she has very dry, chapped skin that does not produce enough sweat or oil to transfer onto the surface.

Edmonds' final witness was Anthony Lincoln, who exchanged several text messages with Brown the night of Dec. 10, 2011, and described his relationship with her as "friends with benefits."

The pair had planned to meet during their lunch break, Lincoln testified, but Brown sent him a text message that evening, telling him she was tired and had a sitter coming to watch Justin.

"I'm sorry. I just couldn't sleep with boy up running around," the message stated. "If sitter wasn't going to be here tonight, I'd tell you to come over."

Karraker asked Lincoln about Brown's relationship with Justin.

"It seemed pretty good to me," Lincoln said. "The last time I saw them was at the homecoming parade at the park. They was having McDonald's."

Thurston called a recess in the case Tuesday afternoon. Testimony will resume at 9 a.m. Thursday, when Karraker will begin presenting his case.

Karraker has said he expects testimony to take about three days.

epriddy@semissourian.com

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Jonesboro, Ill.