On Sunday, retired forensic pathologist Dr. Todd Grey took the Styrofoam head and went to work.
After making marks behind the right ear and on the left cheek, Grey plunged two knitting needles into the head, connecting the marks behind the ear to the marks on the cheek. The needles, which he referred to as probes, were to illustrate the paths of two bullets that killed Juneau jeweler Duilio Antonio “Tony” Rosales on May 15, 2016.
Grey, who now does consulting work, was hired by Assistant Public Defender Deborah Macaulay to investigate the shooting. Macaulay is representing Mark De Simone, who is facing murder charges for Rosales’ death. De Simone and Rosales were two members of a hunting party at Excursion Inlet about 40 miles west of Juneau, various witnesses have testified, when the shooting occurred.
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On Monday morning, Macaulay called Grey to the stand as her first witness as she makes her case. Assistant District Attorney Amy Paige finished the prosecution’s case this past Friday, and Macaulay started to make her case Monday.
Grey was the only one to take the stand Monday, and the impaled Styrofoam head sat in front of him as he spoke. The model, Grey said, was supposed to show how the two bullets went through the head with almost parallel tracks.
“To me,” Grey said under direct examination from Macaulay, “that would be indicative of a very rapid sequence between the two shots.”
Macaulay asked him if the paths of the bullets would look different if there had been a couple seconds between shots, and Grey said the paths would look “very different.”
“The victim’s reaction to a gunshot wound can be quite variable, but you can expect the person is going to turn, duck, move their head in some way after a shot,” Grey said. “If there’s been enough time for them to change their orientation of their head relative to the muzzle of the weapon, you’d get very divergent wound tracks because of that change in orientation.”
Paige objected to the use of the model in court, as it was not a direct recreation of Rosales’ head and measuring the paths of bullets with knitting needles was far from scientific.
Judge Philip Pallenberg agreed that the model was not scientific, but said he believed the point of this exhibit is to show the relative paths, not the exact paths, of the bullets. It’s not meant to be a scientific model, he said, and Macaulay confirmed that was the intent.
Testimony about the timing between shots has been somewhat inconsistent. During cross-examination on the first day of witness testimony, Bill Young (the owner of the gun that killed Rosales) said he heard the gunshots and thought they were so close together that the gun might have been semi-automatic. That was before he knew it was his gun that had fired, he said.
Brothers Sam and Seth Bradshaw, who were the two witnesses closest to the shooting, said there was maybe a second between the shots. Lisa Szybura, a neighbor at Excursion Inlet, said she was able to take three or four steps between the first and second gunshots (she walks quickly, she says).
Part of the prosecution’s case is that this shooting was deliberate because the gun that was used to kill Rosales — a Ruger .41 Magnum Blackhawk revolver — requires the shooter to cock the hammer and pull the trigger for every shot.
Entering what is likely to be the last day of witness testimony in the case, Macaulay has not fully tipped her hand as to what her main argument will be. Firearms expert Chad Kendrick of Taku Tactical is expected to give a demonstration to the jury on Tuesday using a similar revolver to the one that killed Rosales.
He did a trial run of the demonstration for Pallenberg and the attorneys last Thursday, but only for safety reasons. Macaulay didn’t say anything as Kendrick loaded the gun with silicon bullets, cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger. The gun made an audible click but did not fire anything. The jury was not present and Macaulay didn’t say what she was going to use the demonstration to illustrate.
Pallenberg estimated Monday that the trial will likely go to the jury Wednesday. After the conclusion of witness testimony, both attorneys will have a chance to deliver closing arguments and sum up their case to the jury.
• Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at 523-2271 or amccarthy@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @akmccarthy.
Mark De Simone listens to testimony in Juneau Superior Court on Monday, May 7, 2018. De Simone is accused of killing Duilio Antonio “Tony” Rosales during a hunting trip in Excursion Inlet in 2016. (Michael Penn | Juneau Empire)
Duilio Antonio “Tony” Rosales, pictured, was fatally shot in 2016. Rosales, a Juneau resident, was 34 at the time. (Courtesy photo | Rosales family)
