Footprints in the Dirt Behind the Garage

On the morning of March 10, 1983, after seeing my mother on the floor through the rear yard, I ran to the kitchen window, realized I needed a tool, ran north over the dirt strip behind the garage to my car for red-handled pliers, ran south back across the same dirt, removed the screen and three louvered panes, and climbed through. Detective Andrew Monsue pressed two physical objections against that account — directional footprints and the absence of dirt in the kitchen sink. Both collapse on the record.

1. Monsue testified that the two or three prints in the dirt all faced south — a one-way passage to the window, not the round trip I described. ^{34, 36} The prints, he argued, proved I had come straight from the front yard to break in and steal money. ³⁵

   The prosecution’s own trial photographs show north-facing prints in People’s Exhibits 29 and 31. ³⁷ On the stand, Monsue conceded portions of three prints in People’s 29 and two or three more in People’s 31 — five or six total, more than double his original count. ³⁸

   The prints were never rigorously analyzed. SID was not asked to examine them; ³⁹ no casts were made. ²⁰⁵ Defense counsel Dennis Mulcahy never consulted a footwear-impression expert who could have settled directionality and count.

2. Monsue implied that a run through what he called QUITE MOIST ⁴⁰ SOFT MUD ⁴¹ should have left dirt in the kitchen sink. He called 1983 a heavy rain year ⁴² and placed the most recent rainfall two, three, or four days before March 10. ⁴³

   The weather record says otherwise. National Weather Service data from the Canoga Park station show no precipitation on March 7, 8, 9, or 10, 1983 — the 10th was the fourth consecutive dry day. ⁴⁶ Los Angeles County Flood Control records for Van Nuys show 0.23 inches across the entire week of March 4–10. ⁴⁷ LAPD photographer Michael Wilson, on scene that morning, characterized the ground as dry. ⁴⁵

   The physical record cuts the same way. Detective Landgren testified that the footprints ended where the concrete began. ⁴⁹ No dirt trail was tied to my shoes by any identifying characteristic — no soil transfer, no match to the wavy pattern of my soles. Examiners at the scene and at the Van Nuys SID lab found no dirt on my shoes after arrest. Even crediting the “moist” premise, a thirty-foot run back to the window ⁵⁰ would have shed all but trace amounts — and not even those were reported.

   Any dirt on the east walkway most likely came from the unpaved patch at the rear southeast corner of the house that I crossed on my first approach to the window, before going for the pliers. Even granting arguendo that I deposited it, dirt on the walkway and none in the sink condemns Monsue’s own theory — that I came straight from the front yard to break in — as squarely as it condemns his alternative reading.

Neither objection holds. The prints were never professionally examined, the soil was drier than Monsue claimed, and an empty sink is fully consistent with the entry I described. Neither observation narrows the field to guilt.