Big Whodunnit in ME Neurologist's Murder
Maggie
And they may be right. From the Bangor News:
State outlines case against Malmstrom; three guns, one loaded, found in
teen-age daughter’s bedroom
By Renee Ordway, Of the NEWS Staff
BANGOR — When they searched the bedroom of the daughter of a murdered Bangor
neurologist four years ago, police found the trappings of a typical teen-age
girl.
But it was the three handguns, one with a bullet lodged in its chamber, found
casually tucked among some stuffed animals and lying on a stack of white
plastic milk crates that they thought were unusual.
Pictures of Jennifer Malmstrom’s bedroom were among some of the first pieces
of evidence submitted Thursday to jurors on the first day of testimony in the
murder trial of 49-year-old Geraldine Malmstrom, wife of Dr. John
Malmstrom.Both the state and the defense outlined their cases during opening
arguments Thursday afternoon.
While prosecutors promised proof that Geraldine Malmstrom had the means and
opportunity to kill her husband, defense attorneys hinted at other suspects and
a sloppy police investigation.
What was clear through testimony Thursday was that John Malmstrom died in a
violent and bloody confrontation with his killer inside the garage of his
family’s Woodview Avenue home on Jan. 24, 1997.
Geraldine Malmstrom was indicted for her husband’s murder two years later.
She is free on a $50,000 bond. She moved from Bangor to Texas several months
ago.
The murder weapon was found four months after the shooting, in shrubbery
bordering the Brookings-Smith Funeral Home in Bangor. The gun belonged to
Geraldine Malmstrom, according to the prosecution. She also had almost one hour
alone on the evening her husband was shot, prosecutors claim.
What was not addressed on Thursday, however, is why the petite, reserved nurse
would have shot her husband four times, including once in the back.
Defense attorney Daniel Pileggi of Bangor told jurors that Bangor investigators
disregarded evidence and had tunnel vision from the very beginning, focusing
only on his client.
“They disregarded a wealth of evidence that he was killed by someone
else,’’ Pileggi said during his opening remarks. “She’s always been the
focus of their investigation, even though she’s not the last person the state
knows saw John Malmstrom alive. …The state’s theory is wrong.’’
It is yet to be known whether the defense will actually name alternative
suspects as the case unfolds.
A 12-member jury panel — seven women and five men — was chosen from nearly
200 potential jurors and had been selected by 10:30 a.m. Thursday.
Dr. Henry Ryan, Maine’s chief medical examiner at the time of the murder, was
the first to take the stand. His testimony provided jurors with images of a
violent and bloody death.
The testimony from Ryan and Bangor police officers suggested that John
Malmstrom was first shot while inside a small furnace room off the garage. Two
bullets were recovered from that room, and a trail of blood led from that room
to the middle of the garage, where John Malmstrom fell face down beside his
vehicle, according to testimony.
He had been shot four times, including once in the back — a shot Ryan thought
might have been the final shot fired.
The doctor also was shot through the left side of his jaw, which was fractured.
Another bullet entered his right arm, traveled through the arm and re-entered
the right side of his chest. Ryan testified that John Malmstrom probably was
trying to shield himself with his arm when the shot was fired. That bullet
traveled through his ribs, lungs, diaphragm, liver and stomach before coming to
rest in the left side of the chest.
He also was shot through the left arm. That bullet re-entered the body through
the left side of the chest, fractured his ribs, and exited his back 2 inches
below his shoulder blade.
The shot into the lower back struck the spinal cord and traveled into the
aorta, the main artery of the body that carries blood from the heart .
“Because of the limited amount of hemorrhaging in the aorta, I would surmise
that by the time of this bullet wound, he had very low blood pressure,” Ryan
testified. “That would lead me to believe that this was one of the last, if
not the very last, of the bullet wounds to occur.”
Geraldine Malmstrom, dressed in a pink sweater and navy blue skirt, sat
pensively beside her two defense attorneys during the afternoon testimony. She
often closed her eyes briefly as Ryan testified to the extent of her
husband’s injuries.
In his opening remarks, Assistant Attorney General Fernand LaRochelle told
jurors that Geraldine Malmstrom had the opportunity to kill her husband.
According to LaRochelle, Malmstrom and her son, Jordan, the youngest child,
left the house around 6:30 p.m. to go to a friend’s home on Union Street for
a potluck dinner. At around the same time, Julie Malmstrom, the couple’s
middle daughter who was then a sophomore at Bangor High School, left for a swim
meet. Jennifer, the eldest daughter, then a freshman in college, left the house
at about 8:10 p.m. to head to the University of Maine to pick up her boyfriend.
John Malmstrom was home alone with plans to relax for the evening, LaRochelle
said.
Meanwhile, the prosecutor said, Geraldine Malmstrom offered to stay behind at
the Union Street home of Sharon Jennings while everyone else left for a concert
at St. John’s Catholic Church on York Street. Malmstrom said she would clean
up from dinner and prepare settings for dessert that would be served after the
concert.
The other concertgoers left the house at about 7:50 p.m., LaRochelle told
jurors.
It may be Jennifer Malmstrom who delivers some of the state’s most damaging
evidence against Geraldine Malmstrom.
According to the prosecution, Jennifer Malmstrom told police during an early
interview that she saw “who she thought was her mom’’ driving out
Broadway at about 8:20 p.m. Broadway is not far from the Malmstroms’ home,
which is located off Essex Street. That would mean the defendant was traveling
away from York Street, where the church is located.
“The next time anyone saw Geraldine Malmstrom was at 8:45 during a concert
intermission,’’ LaRochelle said.
FBI agents, who interviewed Malmstrom in the months after the murder, are
expected to testify that she drew them a map of her travels that evening. The
map reportedly does not include a reference to Broadway.
The defense took aim Thursday at Bangor Police Department’s evidence
technician and suggested that police and ambulance personnel contaminated the
crime scene.
Under cross-examination by Pileggi, Detective Larry Ellis acknowledged that he
did not search the garage for latent footprints because too many people had
been in the garage by the time he began to collect evidence.
Police did search the Malmstrom home the day after the murder and found a gun
in the master bedroom as well as the three handguns in Jennifer Malmstrom’s
bedroom. They also found a gun in a box above the garage and an empty handgun
holster in a bureau. The empty holster was entered as evidence, as were photos
of the guns found in the teen-ager’s room.
Pileggi scoffed at the state’s theory that Geraldine Malmstrom could have
finished cleaning up the dinner dishes, prepared dessert settings, driven
across the city, shot her husband to death and arrived at St. John Church
“wearing the same clothes’’ and “acting perfectly normal’’ in the
55 minutes that she allegedly was alone.
Shoes that Malmstrom wore that evening were tested for blood splatters, and
those tests were negative, according to testimony.
Testimony is scheduled to continue today.
The extensive witness list for the trial that may last two to three weeks
includes several people who were at the potluck dinner that evening, as well as
the Malmstrom children.
Defense attorneys have not indicated whether Geraldine Malmstrom will take the
witness stand.
Maggie
Fun Facts:
Murderers who kill male victims receive 40% shorter sentences than murderers
who kill female victims (AOTBE).