Hernandez trial features testimony on DNA, shell casing, bubble gum

FALL RIVER, Mass. Aaron Hernandezs attorneys launched a multi-pronged attack Friday on the competence of police investigators, showing that they never bothered to obtain a DNA sample from an alleged accomplice and never tested a piece of chewed bubble gum that was stuck to a shell casing linked to the death of Odin Lloyd.

The gum, a forensic scientist acknowledged under cross-examination by one of Hernandezs attorneys, had likely contaminated the shell casing by transferring Hernandezs DNA to it.

The scientist, Diane Fife Biagiotti, was called to testify in the 21st day of Hernandezs murder trial about her work to compare genetic samples from key pieces of evidence in the case to several of those allegedly involved. But defense attorney James Sultan took advantage of his turn to question her to push the central theme of the defenses case -- that police were sloppy and rushed to pin Lloyds murder on Hernandez.

First, she acknowledged that nobody ever obtained a DNA sample from Ernest Wallace Jr., one of two men alleged to have been with Hernandez when Lloyd was killed.

And she acknowledged that when she tested a shell casing and found DNA on it from the former New England Patriots star she did not know that a piece of chewed bubble gum had previously been stuck to it.

Sultan first got Biagiotti, a DNA technician for the Massachusetts State Police crime lab, to acknowledge that chewing gum can contain DNA. Then he asked her to assume that the shell casing and the gum were once touching each other -- while at the same time displaying a photograph of them stuck together.

Would you agree with me, Miss Biagiotti, that there is a high likelihood that the DNA contained in the saliva on the chewed blue chewing gum would be transferred to that shell casing that is attached to it? Sultan asked.

Prosecutor William McCauley rose and objected to the question, but Judge E. Susan Garsh quickly overruled him.

Yes, Biaggioti said, I would agree with that.

Prosecutors have asserted that shell casing, which was recovered from a car rented to Hernandez, was fired by the same .45-caliber pistol that killed the 27-year-old semi-pro football player. An Enterprise Rent-A-Car employee removed the shell casing -- along with a wad of chewed gum, a piece of paper and a Vitamin Water bottle -- from the Nissan Altima when she cleaned it out after Hernandez returned it.

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Hernandez trial features testimony on DNA, shell casing, bubble gum