Grand Jury


January 15, 1975

Testimony of William Ivory (CID)

I, Manie P. Currin, being a Notary Public and court reporter in and for the State for North Carolina, was appointed to take the testimony of the following witness, William Ivory, before the Grand Jury, Raleigh, North Carolina, commencing at 11:15 a.m. on January 15, 1975.

All Grand Jurors were present with the exception of Juror Samuel Cannady who was permanently excused from all subsequent jury Duty by the Judge.

Whereupon,

WILLIAM IVORY, having been previously sworn, was recalled to the stand and testified as follows:

EXAMINATION CONTINUED BY MR. WOERHEIDE:
Q  Just as a preliminary statement, Mr. Ivory, you understand that you are giving the testimony at this time under the oath that was administrated to you yesterday?
A  Yes, sir.
Q  A Grand Juror was asking as a for instance about blood which has been identified as the blood of Colette and was found in this room.
A  Yes.
Q  Now, the blood on the top sheet of the bed, over in this area, and there's also some blood over here.
     Now, tell us how much blood there was and what the appearance of the blood was, was it direct bleeding, or was it a transfer of blood from something else?
A  Well, the blood in this area here was perhaps right on the wall -- were spurts -- such as having come -- droplets having come from a moving object.
     The blood that was here on this part of the sheet is a result of direct bleeding.
     There is too much to even consider contamination from some drops falling from a bleeding object.
(Witness points to diagram.)
     It had to come, and you will see when you observe the sheet, it had to come from someone laying on that sheet and bleeding.
     I am sure there will be no doubt in your minds when you see it.
     I don't mean to say that the entire sheet was completely saturated with blood but that one section right up here -- well it's a little bit out of place here.  It should be up here towards the body more.  And it's a result of someone having lain there.
Q  Well, see there are the other A.  This A shows up in the picture.
A  Unh-hunh  (yes).
Q  Rather conspicuously.
A  Unh-hunh  (yes).
Q  And I think that is the A she was talking about.
A  I have the photographs here to make it doubly clear in my mind that we're talking about the same the same stain.

(Mr. Woerheide shows the photograph to Grand Jurors.)

MR. WOERHEIDE:  This is the A stain.  There was some A blood in a -- in this area too.  But this is the big massive amount of A blood.  We have a sheet and we will open it up when Mr. Stombaugh is here.
     Do you have any other questions of Mr. Ivory about the blood?  I mean is anyone -- you know -- want to pursue this line of inquiry any further?

(Mr. Woerheide places a clear plastic sheet over the diagram.)

JUROR:  How about the AB blood in there by the telephone?  Was that from dripping, or smudges, or what does he know about that?

MR. WOERHEIDE:  Yeah.

Q  (Mr. Woerheide) Tell us what you can tell us about this blood that was found in this location in the center near the telephone or on the floor in this area?
A  Yes, it is on the floor.  Actually in the dining room, but perhaps a foot away from the doorway to the kitchen.
     And it is one or a series of perhaps two or maybe three streaks of blood, or smudges of blood, where something bloody had slid across the floor or moved across in a squeegee type of motion.

JUROR:  You mean like a hand, or a foot, or a object?

A  Well, something -- a bloody foot, no we don't have any contours of a foot or anything. Perhaps a bloody sheet or something like that that may have been dragged across the floor at that point.  But it is a smear rather than a drop or spattering of blood.

MR. WOERHEIDE:  For the information of the Grand Jurors, I want to ask Mr. Ivory a few questions which will relate to the testimony previously given by Mr. Browning.
     You will recall, Mr. Browning was the technician who came from Japan, and who testified concerning certain shreds of fibers.  Particularly, he identified them as being threads and fibers from the torn pajama top.
     Let me get this.

(Mr. Woerheide removes Exhibit from plastic bag.)

Q  (Mr. Woerheide) Did you participate in the collection of those threads and fibers, Mr. Ivory?
A  Yes, sir, I did.
Q  Now, I have attached to the diagram of the house an overlay and it has a key.  The key reflects, by this symbol, purple seam threads.  These were – well, I will ask Mr. Ivory to explain it.  The next symbol indicates a blue fabric thread.  And the final symbol indicates a blue-black seam thread.
     Now, can you explain to the grand jury where these threads were found and what they were found in conjunction with if some other object was found in the same place?
A  Yes, sir.  The purple seam thread --

FOREMAN:  I will move, go ahead.

A  The purple seam thread is a dark thread.  Well, it's self-explanatory, I guess, in the seam of the garment itself.
     Now the blue fabric -- well, it's not -- I'm not talking of big patches of cloth.  I am talking about fiber type things which came from the fabric itself rather than the seam threads.  And the blue-black seam thread likewise is a -- they say at the laboratory also came from the pajama shirt we are talking about.  But it was used in a different part of the shirt not in the seam.  But in something on some of the ornamentation.
     In other words, on the pajama shirt I collected quite, if not most of the thread and fiber evidence that we have myself and Mr. Shaw.  Most of it was -- we picked this evidence up together.  With my using tweezers and him holding a plastic vial or vice versa.
     All right, I'd like to start in Kristen's room if it's all right.
     We found the seam threads on the outer surface, the upper surface of the green bedspread.  There are just a few not in profusion there was just a few there.  There was fiber from the pajama shirt found under the fingernails of Kristen.  This was found under autopsy conditions.  When they took the fingernail scrapings.  The blue fiber was found there.
     In the south bedroom, the bedroom of Kimberly, on the pillow here.  The pillow which was on the north side of the bed, it was a fiber found up towards the top edge of the pillow up near the head of the bed.
     There was some seam threads and a small fiber piece were found when the bed clothing, as shown by this line, covered the body up to about shoulder height.
     When the blanket and the quilt was pulled down in moving the body and in examining that bottom additional blue seam threads also from the pajama shirt which had to have been there prior to the body being covered up with the blanket.
     I think the master bedroom is where the -- where the actual search for thread and fiber evidence began, because that is where it was initially observed.
     I initially observed the first seam thread that -- that really clung to my mind when the body of Colette MacDonald was raised by the medical personnel and in transferring her over to the stretcher to take her to the morgue.
     The top half of her body, I would say that the head and the neck region and shoulder regions were in the first stages of rigor mortis that was traveling downwards and it was about the shoulder level that I could see.
     And when they lifted her body the head remained rigid, the shoulders remained rigid so there was no slumping or falling back of the head and shoulders when the body was lifted.
     And it was transferred directly with a medic at the head and one at the feet directly onto the stretcher.  So, there was no turning over of the body or anything of that nature.
     And when they lifted it up, I noticed that her -- directly under where her head had been was a large dark clot of blood in sort of a pigtailed type of fashion was a -- when I looked at it closer, was a thread.
     And looking further in that area under where the body had been outlined by myself and special agent Connelly using felt tipped markers, and if we go to the crime scene, I am sure you can still see the outline of the body.
     And within this body outline there was other threads that were noticeable on the top of the deep pile.  That is what really kicked off the search and the collection of all these threads.
     Because it was so odd and unexplainable that the threads would be under her body if she hadn't been moved and this pajama top was laid across the top of her chest.
     And I can state with certainty that the body had not been moved subsequent to my arriving at the quarters.
     So, there were fibers found underneath her body within the body outline I should say, and in profusion, I guess, you could call it all around the body on -- on this throw rug here, on the bed itself, and I hope I'm pointing to the right place here on the floor behind the headboard of the bed -- right -- where the inscription "PIG" was on the headboard were an additional -- additional threads were found right there on the floor by the baseboard of the wall.
     This circle here close to the closet in the master bedroom (Witness points to circle on diagram) denotes where the bundle of a sheet and a bedspread were found.
     A light blue sheet and multicolored bedspread with little tassels on the edge of it and I examined this after the bodies had been removed and all.
     And in opening it, I found the finger of a rubber glove.  And after I found that, I knew I shouldn't open the sheet anymore in that house in the event that I might lose some evidence.
     It would more properly be opened under laboratory conditions.
     So, I folded it back up and put it in a plastic bag.
     And the laboratory examination of this sheet and also the bedspread produced additional threads and fibers in that bloody sheet and also in the bedspread.
     In fact the one on the bedspread -- the blue seam thread was entwined around a bloody hair which, I believe, was identified as being that of Colette MacDonald.
     Other places where threads were found -- well, they weren't found and recovered by me -- they were found under laboratory conditions, on the club which was identified as the murder weapon which was found outside the rear entrance of the quarters.
     That's about it on the threads and fibers.

JUROR:  Would you repeat, please.  On the club where were the fibers found, outside again?

A  They were adhering to the bloody club.

JUROR:  Just to the club?

A  Yes.

JUROR:  But none on the other instruments?

A  No, ma'am.

Q  (Mr. Woerheide) All right, now, tell us if you can, about the hair that was recovered?
A  The hair from the sheet or the bedspread?
Q  Yep, well, you said that hair was found under laboratory conditions on the -- on the -- on the bedspread.  Now, how about other hairs that were submitted to the lab?
A  All right, there were other hairs found in the sheet also inside the bloody sheet.

JUROR:  Whose were they?

A  I beg your pardon.

JUROR:  Whose hair?

A  I believe they were Colette's also.

JUROR:  Did you find any hair on the club itself, you did didn't you?

A  I don't recall.  I truly can't say.  I don't recall.  Other things that were found on the club adhering to the blood were the -- in addition to the threads from the pajama shirt, were also fibers from the throw rug.
     And I believe also from this throw rug.  This throw rug definitely.  (Witness points to rugs on diagram.)

Q  (Mr. Woerheide) All right, can you refer to this list and testify as to whether or not certain items referred to as Q 78, Q 79, Q 81, Q 84, Q 85, Q 86, Q 87, Q 89, Q 95, -- I think I see two Q 95's, Q97, Q 98 and Q 101 were items recovered by you and ultimately submitted to the FBI for examination?

(Witness looks at a file sheet.)

A  All right, sir, a lot of this debris was collected under the laboratory conditions.
Q  Yeah, from material that you submitted to the laboratory?
A  Yes, sir, taken off from the exhibits and the debris removed from the club, of course, was also removed under laboratory conditions.
     But all of the debris from the left hand -- the debris from under the truck of the body, the debris from under the body was Q 78, 79, 81.  That -- those items were collected by me personally and put into the vials.
     The debris from the bedspread, that was also removed, that Q 95, was removed under laboratory conditions.
Q  All right, sir, now, I have another overlay here.  (Mr. Woerheide removes overlay from diagram and places another overlay over the diagram.) All right.
A  I do have some photographs here, Mr. Woerheide, I think from Squires's book -- excuse me -- from Mr. Page's book that show some photographs that were taken of both splinters and also of the blue seam threads that were picked up from the pile of the master bedroom carpet.
     And you can see here in this photograph it's not numbered and also on this.  They are circled in red.
Q  All right.

MR. WOERHEIDE:  Let's mark these on the back as Ivory Exhibit 1, Ivory Exhibit 2 of this date.

(IVORY EXHIBITS 1 AND 2 JANUARY 15, 1975, MARKED FOR IDENTIFICATION)

Q  (MR. Woerheide) Is this a sliver of wood?
A  Yes, sir.
Q  And this, a fiber or thread?
A  Those -- that's also a sliver of wood
Q  A small splinter?
A  Yes, sir.
Q  What are these items?
A  The three at the lower portion of the photograph are threads.
Q  And under the first side, (Mr. Woerheide refers to Exhibit 2,) that's obviously a sliver of wood.
A  Yes, sir, the three circled areas, small circled areas are threads.

(Mr. Woerheide passes photographs to Grand Jurors.)

(Mr. Woerheide removes overly from diagram and places another overlay over diagram.)

JUROR:  Mr. Woerheide, could I ask Mr. Ivory a question about fibers?

MR. WOERHEIDE:  Please do.

JUROR:  Dr.  MacDonald stated that Colette's body was at an angle a little bit to the bedroom chair --

A  Unh-hunh  (yes).

JUROR:  ** and that he might have laid her flat to give her mouth to mouth resuscitation. Would that account for the fibers being under her body?

A  No, sir, -- not, excuse me, not no, sir, no ma'am.

(Laughter)

JUROR:  All right, why do you say that?

A  Again, going by his description of what he said occurred the body was not moved that much and the body would have had to be just placed completely over all these threads.
     It had to have been carried and laid down on top of the fibers.  It's the only way the body would have completely covered all of these seams threads.
     It was not just -- if it was just under the head of the body, or just under part of the trunk of the body there would be a little fudge factor there.  But they are completely under the entire length of the body.

JUROR:  In other words, she didn't die there.

A  I will say she was transported there, or laid there subsequent to the threads being spread on the carpet.  The threads were already there when she was laid down there.

Q  (Mr. Woerheide) All right, sir, this overlay of the diagram depicts club splinters and glove fragments.  Now, here is a pointer, can you tell us about that?
     I see -- let's see, it's hard to distinguish the markings but I see a reference to -- well, these points, and these points, and this, this, they were -- well, take that to begin with and tell us about it.
A  All right, as the legend or the key here explains, the club splinters are marked by little stars.  And these glove fragments by tiny little circles.
     The splinters were found as noted here on the upper portion of the bed clothing in Kristen's bedroom.
     Again, on the upper edge of the pillow on the bed of Kimberly MacDonald.
Q  Just a second, I see.  Before you leave Kim, I see two stars here.
A  The one I can positively talk about is the one on the pillow.  Because I observed that personally myself.
     The ones that were picked up underneath the bed clothing, I am not sure as to their exact location.
     But this particular splinter I can testify to.
     In the master bedroom there were splinters found up on the head region as are shown in the photographs that are being passed around here now.
     And also here on the carpet the -- they weren't large splinters they were perhaps -- the longest one being perhaps two or so inches in length.
     And all of them were bloody.
     I will go into the glove fragments now.
Q  All right, I see it indicates there was a splinter on top of the bed?
A  (Nods affirmatively)
Q  Okay?
A  Yes, here -- it was part of the debris with the threads and fibers and other stuff that were taken up, yes.
Q  Okay, tell us about the glove fragments?
A  The first glove fragment that was, again, first brought to anyone's attention or was glaring out was one here by -- on the floor of the master bedroom on the carpet right by the outstretched hand of the body of Colette MacDonald.
     It is a piece approximately the size of a twenty-five cent piece and was bloody.
     And when first initially observed gives the appearance of being a small piece of skin.
     And it wasn't until there was closer examination of it that we saw that it was a piece of latex or rubber.
     In the crime scene search of the room, we find also a small piece -- perhaps the size of a dime or so -- on the bed in the master bedroom.
     There was another small piece found over by the dresser of the master bedroom.  That dresser being the one near the north wall of the master bedroom.
     All right, there was a small piece found by the dresser or in front of the dresser by the north wall of the master bedroom.
     And the largest piece was, as I have explained earlier, was in the blue sheet that was found on the floor here by the closet by the main door to the master bedroom.
     And that was -- would -- what appeared to be an entire finger section of a surgeon's rubber glove.
     Our subsequent laboratory examination of it did in fact bear out that these pieces were all part of a latex surgeon's glove.
     These pieces were examined or compared with other latex surgeon's gloves, brand name, Perry, which were found under the sink in the kitchen of the MacDonald quarters.

JUROR:  Can you tell us with what findings?

A  That they were compatible, or the same substantial -- they broke it down into the minutest component parts of the latex gloves and said, these fragments are of the same glove, Perry Latex Surgeon's Glove.
     I have a photograph here -- it's marked as Squires's Exhibit 25 and it shows next to the body of Colette MacDonald that fragment of the rubber glove which I described as being found by her hand.

(Witness passes photograph to the Grand Jurors.)

Q  (Mr. Woerheide) Now, I see a reference here to a crushed bloody hair.  Now, can you tell us about that?  I'm just lifting this up here on the sink there was apparently a crushed bloody hair.
A  Yes, sir, that was the debris that was in the sink and around the drain portion of the sink that was removed.
     And in examination at the laboratory they determined that it was a crushed bloody hair of Colette MacDonald.
Q  Well, I suppose that covers this overlay.  I know these people were very much interested in knowing the extent of the area in which you found so many fibers.  I see a picture here which apparently -- there's an outline of lower part of Colette's body that shows a heavy spot of blood towards the top taken after the body was removed.  Would that be helpful on the results of the picture?
A  Unh-hunh  (yes).
Q  Well, would that be helpful in illustrating the area in which you found these fibers?
A  Yes, sir, it would.  This is a photograph taken by Mr. Page after the body had been removed and after a number of items of evidence had been picked up and as is marked in red here.
     It's marked as blue on the carpet but it's marked in red here for contrast.
     On the leg portions and trunk of the body there's a large bloody stain in the upper region.
     The large blood stain was in the head and shoulder region of Colette's body.
     And they were found there.  And they were found scattered throughout this area, and on top of the bed, of course, and while we can't see it here it's down behind the headboard of the bed on the floor.

(Witness points to diagram.)

JUROR:  How about that chair there, Mr. Ivory, was there much blood on the chair?

A  There was some blood on the face of the chair here.

JUROR:  Was it spattered or smudged?

A  It was smudged.

JUROR:  Smudged and --

A  Excuse me, I didn't mean to cut you off.  Did I cut you off?

JUROR:  No.

A  Also there were threads and fibers found and back here, this was the area where the other piece of the rubber glove was found.

JUROR:  Was all the hand portion of the rubber glove accounted for?

A  Unfortunately not, those pieces that I just described were the only portions of it that were found.

JUROR:  In trying your experiments did you try flushing one down the commode to see if it goes?

A  I have not.  Other people have and they say it is flushable.  But I have not personally flushed one, but other people have done it.

Q  (Mr. Woerheide) You are talking about the latex glove?  Now, they are very fine latex.

JUROR:  I know that, but I know they dug the sewer up so far and I was just wondering.

A  As clear as that sewer pipe was, it wouldn't have trapped it.  There was no obstruction in the pipe.

MR. WOERHEIDE:  Well, I guess we are ready for Mr. Stombaugh.  Do you want to start with him right after lunch?

FOREMAN:  Yes, sir.

MR. WOERHEIDE:  Any other questions of Mr. Ivory at this time.  Mr. Ivory will be along when ya'll go down to the house and we will take a reporter along.  Maybe we can have him testify there a little bit further about where he found these fibers and threads and things.

Witness excused.

FOREMAN:  Can we be back at one o'clock?

(Lunch recess)