Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Prosecution Begins Case Against Joe Dansby For 1992 Murders (cont)

und at the murder scenes and tagged into evidence. They were all fired from the same weapon, he said, but it can't be proven they were fired from the Marlin .22 in question.

Turning to the topic of the casings, Bramblett said ASP criminal investigator Jack Ursery, NCSO deputy William Steed and others were given permission to search Dansby's property for spent shells and found none. However, on Oct. 19, 1993, when former sheriff Abb Morman went to pick Dansby up on a seizure warrant, four casings were found in his back yard. Morman, he said, was there with deputies Heb Sorrells and Wayne Kisselburg.

One of these casings, Bramblett said, is supposed to match the nine found at the two crime scenes.

"You need to wait until the testimony unfolds," he said, "and not make up your mind till then and decide if it's believable.

"If the rifle was in the pit in July 1993," he continued, "no one was firing it in October 1993."

From there he went to the DNA evidence. He said semen was found on the swabs taken, and the NCSO and ASP decided to have DNA tests done to determine the supplier.

But, he said, the blood taken from Lewis was so broken down results were unsuccessful. Samples of Lewis' blood were taken at both crime scenes.

Blood from Dansby was drawn Oct. 19, 1993, and sent to the FBI lab for analysis.

DNA testing, Bramblett told the jury, is not like fingerprinting, because millions of fingerprints have been taken and no two are alike. These, he said, are conclusive.

DNA testing, though, is not like fingerprinting. Identical twins, he said, have been shown to have the exact DNA profile, while others have similar profiles.

Testing can only rule out who the supplier is, but cannot say without a doubt who the supplier of the sample was. The results, he said, are given in terms of probabilities.

The FBI results of DNA testing as to a potential match with Dansby were 1:180. This, Bramblett said, means of every 180 black men tested, one will have a similar profile as found in this case.

"The state wasn't satisfied," he said, "and hired a private firm." This firm was Cellmark of Germantown, Md., the same lab which tested blood samples in the O.J. Simpson case.

The results Cellmark found, he said, were drastically different, at 1:7,600. "You need to think about the inexact nature of the variations," he said. "Is it something you can really rely on?"

However, the rifle and DNA evidence weren't all that bothered Bramblett in the case. He said Lewis' pickup truck had been dusted for fingerprints and not one was found -- even from the victims.

Again, Bramblett told the jury not to make up its mind until all the evidence and testimony had been presented. When this was done, he said, they would have more questions than answers, and there would be no clear picture of Dansby as the killer.

Once the opening statements were made, the witnesses were sworn in and removed from the courtroom.

Harley Hillery was the first witness called by the state. He told where he lived and where this was in relation to the crime scenes.

He said Clark was his stepdaughter, and had lived with he and his wife, Mary, since she was 10. He told the jury he thought of Malissa as his own daughter.

At the time of her death, he said, they were getting along better, after having problems when she married someone he and her mother didn't approve of. This marriage, he said, lasted less than a year.

Also at the time of her death, he said, he was the criminal investigator at the NCSO.

Hillery said he got to know Jeff Lewis a few months before he and Malissa began dating because he was a member of a fitness club Hillery owned with William Steed.

He told how he and Lewis had been turkey hunting when Lewis asked permission to marry Clark, with permission granted. "I thought it was great," Hillery said.

On the morning of their death, Hillery and Lewis had been fishing. He said Lewis had seen a trolling motor in a pawn shop and wanted to see if it was worth buying.

He said he arrived home around 4:30 or 5 p.m., just behind Clark, when Lewis drove up. The two, he said, had plans to ride Lewis' four wheeler.

Small talk was made about the motor and whether or not Lewis had eaten, Hillery testified, with Clark eating a salad before they left. This was the last time they were seen alive.

The Hillery's went to bed around 10:30 p.m., with Hillery's wife waking him up between 5 and 5:30 a.m. Sunday, May 17, telling him Clark had not come home. He said she told him she had spoken with the Lewis', and Jeff hadn't returned either.

"Mary said she thought they were going to the Suckles Lake area to ride," he said, "so I went there."

Hillery testified searching the Suckles Lake area before getting a call from the NCSO dispatcher saying his wife suggested he look in the area where her father used to live near Cale.

He went directly to the area, passing by where crime scene 2 was later found to be. But, he told the jury, he had looked down the various side roads as he went there, passing crime scene 2 road, but thinking no one had been down it since the last rain and not going down the road himself.

Hillery got a call on the police radio in the patrol car he was in, telling him someone had found something. This turned out to be a pair of weightlifting gloves, wrist wraps and a broken portion of a gun rack.

These items were identified as belonging to Lewis.

When Hillery arrived at his house, he was told these thing were found by Sid Meadows, who had heard about the two missing and was looking for them as well. He told Hillery these items were found in the area later identified as crime scene 1.

Meadows showed Hillery and deputy Wally Hulan, who Hillery had picked up earlier, where this area was.

When they arrived, he said, he saw spent and live rounds of ammunition at the scenes, with others found later.

"I could tell the truck had backed up in the log road," he said.

Hillery was unable to be specific when telling about finding the pair of bloody Prescott High School gym shorts and pink ladies panties, or when he put them in the trunk of his patrol car.

He said there was evidence where the truck had crossed a washout and spun dirt trying to climb out on the other side, where it hit a stump and tree.

Hillery also testified as to finding a checkbook and sunglasses at the scene.

All items recovered were later turned over to ASP investigator Lt. Finis Duvall.

The ASP had set up a command post in the area of the Morris Church, where search parties were forming.

Hillery went on to tell the jury how he heard Lamar Barham call on the radio saying he had found something, requesting the sheriff to get there as soon as possible. Hillery went to the scene as well.

He said when he arrived Lewis' truck was there, and there was something in the road Morm