Blood and brain material on Foster's hand & wrist?
j...@inxpress.net
Court TV is showing the Mowbray retrial, in which a
wife, convicted of killing her husband, claims that
he in fact shot himself with a revolver.
The prosecution claims that there would have had
to have been copious amounts of blood and brain material
on the deceased's hand and wrist, had he shot
himself.
----
j...@inxpress.net
This one's worth watching.
The revolver was found right by the deceased's right
hand.
Now playing on a cable system or satellite network near you.
Bill Nalty
"The doctor who performed the autopsy later testified that it would
have been impossible for Bill Mowbray to shoot himself in the head
and not have blood and brain matter on his shooting hand."
http://www.courttv.com/trials/mowbray/
Texas v. Susie Mowbray
January 13 Highlights (The Houston Chronicle)
January 12 (The Houston Chronicle)
Murder or Suicide?
A woman who was convicted 10 years ago for murdering her husband now
faces a new trial. During her first trial in 1988, prosecutors convinced
a Texas jury that Freda "Susie" Mowbray killed her husband, Bill
Mowbray, to collect $1.8 million in insurance benefits. The defendant
denied killing him and insisted that he committed suicide.
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Picture: Susie Mowbray: Convicted 10 years ago for
murdering her husband, she now faces a new trial.
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Mrs. Mowbray was in prison for nine years until the Texas Court of
Appeals overturned the conviction for first-degree murder in May 1997
and freed her on $35,000 bond. The court ruled that prosecutors had
suppressed blood evidence that could have contradicted the prosecution's
theory about the murder and cleared the defendant of the crime.
What Really Happened?
Bill Mowbray, a Brownsville car dealer, was found shot to death in his
and his wife's bed on Sept. 16, 1987. Susie Mowbray told police that her
husband shot himself in the head while they were both in bed. According
to Mrs. Mowbray, she was asleep that night until a noise awakened her.
The defendant claimed that when she awoke, she found saw her husband's
elbow upright in the air. When Susie reached out to touch Bill, she
heard an explosion, presumably gun fire.
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Picture: Bill Mowbray: Found shot to death in his
and his wife's bed on Sept. 16, 1987.
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Susie Mowbray saw Bill's blood seep onto her blanket and ran downstairs
to call Luke Fruia, her husband's business partner. She told him
frantically, "He [Bill] shot himself. I knew there was a gun. I groped
and grabbed the gun. I had been living with this fear for three years."
Mrs. Mowbray's "fear" apparently stemmed from the fact that Bill Mowbray
had previously tried to kill himself over the financial troubles that
plagued his car dealership. Apparently, the Internal Revenue Service was
threatening to charge Mr. Mowbray with tax fraud. According to his
partner Fruia and other supporters of Susie Mowbray, the alleged victim
vowed to kill himself before ever spending time in jail for his alleged
tax crimes.
However, during her first trial, prosecutors claimed that the victim
could not have committed suicide. Police claimed that Mr. Mowbray's
right arm, which would have been his shooting arm, was under the covers
when they found him and that once he was moved, no blood was found on
his right hand. The doctor who performed the autopsy later testified
that it would have been impossible for Bill Mowbray to shoot himself in
the head and not have blood and brain matter on his shooting hand. In
addition, the victim's left hand also had a bullet wound.
Investigators also found that the gun that killed Bill Mowbray, who was
an avid hunter and gun collector, still had its safety guard on. One
expert witness during the first trial claimed that while the gun still
could have been fired with the safety guard, it would have been very
difficult for the victim to do so. In the first trial, prosecutors also
portrayed the defendant as a socialite who loved expensive things and
not her husband.
Susie Mowbray's account of the incident has changed over the years.
Initially she claimed that her husband did not talk about killing
himself the night he died. Then, Mrs. Mowbray changed her story and
claimed that she and Bill had been talking and crying throughout that
night as she was unsuccessful in her thwarting his suicide attempt.
The Keys to (Temporary?) Freedom
The evidence which made the appeals court release Mrs. Mowbray from
prison and order a new trial focuses on the testimony of a prosecution
crime expert from the 1988 trial. This blood spatter expert told jurors
that he found microscopic droplets of blood on the defendant's nightgown
and that the pattern of these tiny blood splatters were consistent with
Mrs. Mowbray having fired a gun. Later, it was revealed that this expert
had never determined that these splatters were indeed blood. In
addition, prosecutors also reportedly withheld the testimony of another
expert who would have said that there was no blood at all on Mrs.
Mowbray's nightgown and that her husband's death was most likely a
suicide.
If convicted in her second trial, Susie Mowbray could spend between five
years and life in prison.
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