East Haven Avenue, Arcadia, LA County; 2ndJuly 1985.
Mary Cannon was a two-time cancer survivor. She had been in a minor car accident the day before she was murdered. That evening, she had visited her neighbours, who had a spare key to her house. Despite staying up watching TV approximately 35 feet away from Cannon’s house, the neighbour did not hear anything strange. However, at 8:30 the next morning he noticed that the screen from her window was lying on the porch and her newspaper remained on the grass, soggy from her garden sprinkler. Concerned, the neighbours phoned Cannon, then entered with their spare key. The were alarmed to find the lights on and the hallway in disarray, and they phoned the police. Officer Edward Winter arrived at 9:26am and found Mary Cannon dead on her bed, face down in a pool of blood. Later, Sergeant Frank Salerno of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department arrived.
The autopsy revealed that Mary Cannon was killed by multiple stab wounds to the neck; one was fatal. She had also been strangled by either hands or the crook of an arm. Additionally, she suffered blunt force trauma to the face and head. The murder weapons appeared to be a ten-inch knife, her walking cane, and a glass lamp stand.
Physical Evidence:
- A paper tissue with a bloody shoeprint.
- Three more shoe prints in the carpet.
- Shattered glass from a broken lamp near her shoulder and in her hair.
- A bloody mitten.
- A snapped walking cane on the bed.
- A bloody ten-inch knife on the bed – this had come from her kitchen.
- Ransacked room, including a filing cabinet and raided jewellery box.
- Bedroom window screen missing from a smashed window.
- Human hairs – light brown.
- A rape kit was collected.
The Evidence Seemed to Exonerate Richard Ramirez
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s criminalist Giselle LaVigne received the evidence. Despite the hot temperature (it was more than 90°F/30°C), LaVigne discovered wet blood on the shattered glass from Cannon’s hair. This blood was tested to determine PGM markers – protein enzymes in the membranes of red blood cells. These enzymes are found throughout the entire body and are present in sem*n and saliva as well as blood and provide genetic information about bodily fluids deposited at crime scenes. LaVigne’s initial findings were that they did not match Mary Cannon – it could only have come from her killer. But that killer could not have been Richard Ramirez – it did not match his PGM subtype.
In court, Giselle LaVigne testified that she had allowed the blood sample to dry and degrade and as a consequence, she claimed that she now doubted her own accuracy and could no longer exclude Ramirez. However, electrophoretic testing can work on both wet and dry blood – indeed 90% of crime scene blood samples received by forensic scientists is dried. The degradation of the sample could mean that two blood types were mixed and damaged each other which would be consistent with LaVigne’s initial findings.
The second sample was from a mitten and this time was consistent with both Mary Cannon’s blood and Ramirez’s. The Petition states that this sample went for additional electrophoretic tests which proved that it again showed a different PGM marker from Richard Ramirez. It is also possible that the differing blood results could mean there were two perpetrators.
As for the other evidence, the hair was thought not to be Ramirez’s – although hair testing was primitive in the 1980s and was subjective depending on the serologist’s opinion. Nevertheless, it did not look the same colour or texture, and this is what a competent defence attorney should have argued. The Petition states that some evidence was released to the defence but for some reason, it was not returned to the crime lab. This presumably relates to the blood samples.
Avia Shoes And Perjury?
Shoe prints were found in several rooms and carpet pieces were extracted, but by the time of the trial, the shoeprints had degraded and disappeared. Gerald Burke, the inadequately qualified forensic examiner was sent this shoe evidence (he did not personally visit the crime scene). Burke originally stated that there was no definite pattern to identify a specific brand of shoe for the carpet samples, but that it was size 11 or 11½. For the tissue, Burke determined that the bloody print was an Avia Aerobics model shoe, of unknown size. Burke’s original forensics report (below) can be found in the Petition’s supporting files, in Document 7-20.
The Cannon case is one of many scandals in whole ‘Night Stalker’ case. Burke testified in court that the shoe prints were definitely Avias. Ramirez’s attorneys did not retain a shoe forensics expert, so this evidence and Burke’s perjury was left undefended. However, the Habeas Corpus lawyers did, and so we have Lisa DiMeo’s assessment. It is impossible to tell which model of Avia made the print on the tissue because the heel is not present, which means 13 types of Avia could be responsible. As for the carpet, DiMeo found it to be falsified and that the jury had been misled: she discovered that a printed overlay had been stuck to the carpet, which tricked them into believing there was an obvious shoe print. The following images come from Document 7-20.
While it appears that a partial Avia print could have been on a piece of tissue, it seems that the prosecution witnesses were willing to lie, fake evidence and even discredit themselves in order to make Richard Ramirez seem guilty. If Avias were present at the Cannon scene, the blood and hair results suggest that he was not the person wearing them.
The Blind Defence and Felipe ‘The Fence’
Not only did Ramirez’s attorneys fail to defend the negative serological tests, they neglected to move for sanctions for the prosecution’s failure to preserve the blood evidence. Therefore, the exonerating evidence went unnoticed by the jury, who had also been shown false shoe evidence. And yet, the prosecution had more cards to play – namely fence Felipe Solano, whose loot was displayed at a property line-up on 5th September 1985. A necklace thought to belong to Mary Cannon was identified by her friend and Felipe Solano testified in court that Ramirez had given him 1,500 items, including this necklace.
Despite the fact that Solano’s testimony unravelled in court, and he was impeached, the jury were convinced – because the defence failed to develop the case for other suspects. Solano had been in receipt of stolen goods from multiple burglars – but none of these people were called to testify. The Petition names them: Manuel “Cuba” Hecharvarria should have been called as a witness – he had informed the police about Ramirez after he was named as the prime suspect. Hechavarria had committed burglaries with Ramirez. The pair also committed thefts with a mysterious man named Julio. Another associate and friend of Felipe Solano was Eva Castillo. Castillo also named Julio as well as others. All of them should have been thoroughly investigated in connection with the Night Stalker crimes.
Halpin Logic – Prosecution Conjecture
The defence attorneys were not the only ones at fault: some of the prosecution’s arguments were ludicrous conjecture, for example urging the jury to find Ramirez guilty of the Cannon murder because the stab wounds matched those on Maxine Zazzara. Stabbings and beatings are the most common methods of murder and unless the weapon was unique, wounds look identical, making comparison meaningless. The Zazzara and Cannon crimes have nothing in common aside from alleged Avia shoeprints. At least the defence made an argument against this.
Halpin also urged conviction based on the Cannon scene’s proximity to the Bennett and Bell/Lang scenes. However, serological tests suggest Ramirez was not guilty of those either. Bennett was another scene where the blood did not match his and again, the only connection between the three were Avias, that cannot be scientifically connected to Richard Ramirez.
This is possibly one of the greatest miscarriages of justice of the 20th Century.
-VenningB-
11th Oct 2022
