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Jurors shown images from crime scene

BOLLING AIR FORCE BASE, Washington, D.C. — Four days into Airman Calvin Hill’s murder trial, a somber video tour put jurors inside the blood-stained spare room where Airman 1st Class Ashley Turner was beaten and stabbed.

The silent footage added another layer to one of this case’s core questions. How did a spot of Turner’s blood end up on one of Hill’s Nikes? Air Force prosecutors claim Hill murdered Ashley Turner, former friend and fellow 56th Rescue Squadron airman, on August 14, 2005. The two shared a T-shaped dorm on Iceland’s Keflavik Naval Air Base.

He has already pleaded guilty to stealing roughly $2,700 from Turner using her ATM card. His three-person defense team says the crimes end there. They claim Hill was hurriedly accused, that viable suspects went unexamined and that the investigation was sloppy.

But prosecutors say Hill cracked Turner’s skull with a dumbbell weight, severed her spinal tissue with a knife and left her to die in a seldom-used spare room by the dorm’s gym.

The 14-person jury on Monday viewed the trial’s grisliest images yet: Post-mortem photos, taken in the base hospital, of Turner’s badly beaten face. Blood was everywhere: Smeared on her plastic neck brace. On the gurney. Caking blonde locks to her cheek.

Several days after Turner’s body was found, amateur photographer and Navy Aviation Boatswain’s Mate 2nd Class Christopher Vincent was asked to film the crime scene. His video depicts an uninviting room adjacent to the small gym.

Jurors quietly viewed an Icelandic wind billowing out the room’s window curtains and the wall’s waist-high wood paneling. A clunky foosball table occupies one corner. On the floor: Loose padding ripped from Turner’s headphones. On the wall: a chipped dartboard. A purple-black blood pool is centered in the floor, next to the supplies bag medics hurriedly left behind.

Vincent did not film the trail of blood outside, but witnesses have repeatedly described the left-hand stairwell medical responders used to carry Turner outside. Blood drops led all the way to the parking lot, they said.

For days, the defense has scrutinized crime scene security. They contend that any number of careless investigators and security officers could have accidentally spotted Hill’s shoe with Turner’s blood.

Like other witnesses at the crime scene that night, two more Navy investigators on Monday said they did not step in any blood or see any blood disturbed. That pattern was broken when Master Sergeant Marion Shell, one of Hill’s supervisors, told the courtroom he saw blood smears, possibly caused by footprints, in the left stairwell.

“I first assumed it was chocolate or something like that,” Shell said. Further, he saw blood, he said, on the shoes of a fellow sergeant who is expected to testify later in the trial. “I asked, ‘What happened?’“ Shell said. “He didn’t have an explanation.”

Shell and another supervisor, questioned by the prosecution, also said they had no meetings with Hill on the night Turner was murdered. This contradicts testimony by Hill’s then-girlfriend, an Icelander of Thai descent, who said Hill parted with her for a while that night after claiming he needed to meet with a supervisor.

Much of the testimonies so far have in some way touched on Hill’s large pair of black-and-red Nike basketball shoes. Jurors saw them for the first time Monday when prosecution attorney Maj. Matthew Stoffel, wearing latex gloves, lifted them from a brown paper evidence bag.

He handed the sneakers to witness Navy Master-at-Arms 1st Class Daniel Sud, the officer who put Hill behind bars, stripped him down and bagged his clothes for evidence. Sud told the court he closely inspected all of Hill’s clothes for stains.

“That would include blood, right?” asked defense attorney Maj. Stephen Ganter.

“Definitely, sir,” Sud responded.

Previous stories:

* Murder trial testimony focuses on blood spot

* Airman’s defense says others may be murderer