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| | The Jury Further Deliberates In The Kelly Soo Park Murder Of Juliana Redding Trial. Jury Asks For Read-Back. Rarity Of DNA In Blood Drop To Match Another Profile Other Than Kelly Soo Park's Is One In One Trillion.
By Lonce LaMon - May 26, 2013
Friday, May 24th 2013: This is the second full day of jury deliberations in the trial of Kelly Soo Park. Deliberation started very late in the day on Wednesday, May 22nd 2013. Everyone in the court room right now is stone quiet. Everyone is just waiting… waiting… Anxiety levels are sky high.
Kelly Soo Park is seated on the end of the bench right at the center aisle of the back row with her husband, Tom Chronister, the retired cop. We are in Department 109 of the Clara Shortridge Foltz criminal court house in downtown Los Angeles, the court of the Honorable Kathleen Kennedy.
Kelly Soo looks beautiful as always and even with her red and swollen eyes. She has an ongoing puffiness underneath them which has not gone away in all the days leading up to this trial. She is on trial for the murder of aspiring actress and model, Juliana Redding—a young and ambitious 21-year-old who was 5’ 7” tall and weighed a mere 110 pounds. She was definitely a Twiggy of her time-- a perfect model, and according to her friends—most beautiful. She had her whole life ahead of her until the night of March 15th 2008 when she was brutally murdered by manual strangulation and left on her bed in her Santa Monica apartment on Centinela Avenue.
Kelly Soo constantly wears these long sleeved shirts with her black pants. It’s like her uniform. Today she is wearing a light blue and white striped shirt with white cuffs, a white collar, and white strips running up the button and button hole edges.
Copyright © Lonce LaMon. All rights reserved.
Juliana’s friends are here: Kelly Duncan who met Juliana in college and went out to dinner with her at Tengu restaurant in West L.A. the very night she was murdered; Cher Brooks from Primitivo Wine Bistro in Venice where she and Juliana worked; Natasha Hopey who was Juliana’s best friend who picked her up at the airport after her birthday fiasco in Las Vegas with Munir Uwaydah; and a few other beautiful young women who all look like models. Brian Van Holt didn’t appear today. He had appeared for the last two court days.
The Reddings are in the second row; Greg Redding on the very end next to a young blonde friend, and then Patricia Redding and an unknown man.
Kelly Soo Park’s uncle is on my left here in the third row; then Kelly Soo’s Aunt Valle, then Irene, Kelly Soo’s mother. Irene is wearing a fine navy blue suit with a swirling silver broach on the lapel.
Irene is always well dressed at each court appearance in a fine suit or a well- coordinated combination of a jacket with slacks. Yesterday she wore an exquisite black suit. She likes maroon jackets and wears them often. The strain on her is clearly tremendous but she always keeps up a fine appearance.
Kelly Soo Park's mother, Irene Park, leaving the courthouse on Friday afternoon, May 24th 2013. Copyright © Lonce LaMon, all rights reserved
Irene walks with a pronounced limp; she is dignified and reserved. Her husband, Keun-Sil, who may be divorced from her but may not, lives full-time in South Korea and is presently in the hospital. That clearly must put more strain on Irene’s mind. Keun-Sil is thought to be 77 years old and Korean, while Irene is about 74 and is Lithuanian. She and her family immigrated to the United States from Lithuania during or after World War II when she was a mere child. Her other daughter, Kolleen, is a famous performing arts singer and musicals’ director in South Korea and she has written a book containing some facts about the family’s history.
The jury has requested some read-back from the testimony. They request to rehear the testimony of Annette McCall, the DNA analyst from the Orange County Crime Lab.
Judge Kathleen Kennedy asks, “Are we ready to bring the jury out and all the alternates?” The attorneys indicate they are ready. Then Judge Kennedy asks the bailiff, “Can you bring the alternates in and the jury?”
The jury walks in through a door at the back of the court room and the alternates come in from the front door. Here comes that one man juror who’s in a nice suit and tie and is a banker. He’s always dressed so professionally. The rest of the jurors are always more casually attired. There are men and women, Blacks and Whites and Latinos. A couple of the jurors have strong accents. The diversity is substantial.
George Buehler, Kelly Soo Park's attorney, leaves the courthouse in a blur on May 23rd 2013. Copyright © Lonce LaMon, all rights reserved.
Laurie Small, the very competent brunette court reporter, sits on the witness stand and reads back Annette McCall’s testimony.
Annette states that from the front and back of Juliana Redding’s tank top she recovered a mixture of DNA. Juliana could not be excluded as a major contributor. She used the Profiler Plus and the Identifiler test kits. The minor contributor was an unknown female. This minor contributor profile was consistent with the female profile she extracted from the other items.
“I excluded all the females I had tested so far…” Annette McCall said. 42 females, consisting of Juliana’s friends, acquaintances, and connected persons had their DNA tested and were excluded.
But this unknown female consistently showed up on Juliana’s neck, tank top, cell phone, stove knob, interior door, and on the blood from the latent print found on the plate in the sink.
All the profiles were analyzed from the years 2008 to 2012. In March of 2009, Annette McCall received the latent print card that had the finger print from the orange plate that was found in Juliana Redding’s kitchen sink during the analysis of the crime scene. There was a tiny drop of blood on that print card. So, Annette McCall analyzed it for DNA.
Copyright © Lonce LaMon, all rights reserved
The DA, Stacey Okun-Wiese, asks Annette if the blood drop could have been a transfer of blood from one person leaving the blood of another on that plate. Annette says no, it’s not likely, because the blood spot was round and circular. If it were a transfer it would look more like a smear, a swipe.
It was a single source profile, not a mixture. By the time Kelly Soo Park’s DNA profile was available, the unknown female profile became known as Kelly Soo Park’s profile. “I determined that Kelly Park could not be excluded as a contributor,” McCall testified.
She discussed the frequency estimate. “We base it on population groups, frequencies of subsets of populations. The frequency of choosing someone who could not be eliminated as a source of the DNA.”
The chance of finding some person in the population at random with the same profile as the DNA of the blood drop on the latent print card is, “more rare than one in one trillion.”
Prosecutor Stacey Okun-Wiese pointed out that there are seven billion people on the Earth right now. “We just want to show how rare this profile is,” she said, “And there are not even one trillion people on Earth.”
Greg and Patricia Redding (center) prepare to cross the street on North Broadway in downtown L.A. with their family and friends after court on Thursday, May 23rd 2013. Copyright © Lonce LaMon, all rights reserved.
Then Stacey said, “You’d have to add three billion people.” Nobody said anything, and the judge didn’t correct her. This mistake went over everybody’s head who was in the bench area, but this writer caught the mistake but was not in a position to speak up in court. I was dying to raise my hand and say “Wait a minute. Stacey. You did the math wrong!”
To correct Stacy, who has done a brilliant job, one would have to add 993 billion people to 7 billion people to get 1 trillion. Stacey was off by 990 billion people. One trillion is 1,000 billion, not 10 billion.
So, the frequency factor is way more rare than the DA was even able to imagine. It’s that infinitesimally rare. So, to be able to find another person who would have the same profile and could not be eliminated as a source of the DNA, we would have to increase our current Earth’s population by approximately 143 times to be assured of finding someone with the same profile. That’s how rare this profile is!
This instance of the prosecutor saying 3 billion rather than 993 billion just shows how hard it is for people to comprehend the rarity of this DNA profile. The numbers are absolutely staggering. One trillion is this: 1,000,000,000,000.
Greg Redding, second from left, the father of murder victim Juliana Redding, puts his wallet back in his pocket on North Broadway after court last Thursday after giving some money to a panhandler. Copyright © Lonce LaMon, all rights reserved.
Your odds of winning the Powerball Lottery are one in 175,000,000. The odds of your DNA having the same profile as the drop of blood on the latent print card for which Kelly Soo Park’s DNA profile could not be eliminated as a source of the DNA, is one in 1,000,000,000,000.
You are 5,714 times more likely to win the Powerball Lottery than you are to not be eliminated as a source of the DNA from the blood left on the latent print card for which Kelly Soo Park’s DNA could not be eliminated as the source.
Will the jury get it? We’d have to increase our current Earthly population 143 times in order to absolutely find another DNA profile match other than Kelly Soo Park. Let’s get real. It aint gonna happen…
Further according to witness, DNA analyst, Annette McCall, Kelly Soo Park could not be excluded as the major contributor of the DNA on Juliana Redding’s cell phone. The frequency indicator on the cell phone is also more rare than one in one trillion.
On the stove knob, the frequency indicator is more rare than one in 20,000. For the front and back of Juliana’s tank top, Kelly Soo Park could not be excluded as a minor contributor of DNA, and the frequency of choosing an individual at random is more rare than one in 200 billion (200,000,000,000).
The reading by Laurie Small, court reporter, ends and the jury leaves. Everyone in the audience area goes back to reading their books, newspapers, I-Pads, or to playing with their cell phones. Or they leave the court room and hang out in the hallway. The bailiff demands that all cell phones be turned off, but people just turn off the sounds. There turns out to be a sound neglected to be turned off here and there and the bailiff barks. The silence becomes at moments almost unbearable.
Copyright © Lonce LaMon, all rights reserved.
Kim Park is just behind this writer wearing all black. She is Kelly Soo’s sister. There are three sisters: Kim, Kelly, and Kolleen. Kolleen is now not only a performing arts superstar in South Korea, but she is also, of late, a popular TV show host and personality. The word is that the Press in South Korea seems to be sparing Kolleen the embarrassment of the notoriety of her sister’s murder trial.
Some people in the Redding’s group in the second row are reading the Los Angeles Times. Kelly Soo’s aunt and uncle are reading books in the third row. I see a Graham Greene novel. Kelly Soo’s mother, Irene, has moved to the back row to sit next to Kelly. Irene has a pained look on her face as she tries to cope. Kelly Soo sits next to her mother clutching her purse. Tom Chronister is well dressed in dark blue pants and a beige and blue meshed sport jacket with a white shirt open-collared with no tie. His outfit looks really good today and doesn’t clash. Now Kelly Soo is reading the newspaper. Tom’s mother—well, a woman who definitely appears to be his mother—sits next to him on his right in purple suede with her short white hair.
Everyone is just waiting… agonizingly…
The bail bondsman, Josh Herman, steps in. He’s a gargantuan sized man in a dark suit with shoulders that seem as wide as the court room itself. He hugs Kelly Soo. He talks to her. Two Korean men enter and sit on both sides of Kelly Soo. They have never been here before. Irene grabs and holds one of the men’s left hand. Kelly Soo holds his right hand. They both have dark hair without a single grey hair and are wearing short sleeved shirts with no jackets.
Patrick Redding, Juliana Redding's brother, wears a pink looped ribbon on his lapel in honor of his sister, who was murdered on March 15th 2008. Everyone in the Redding family and friends group wore a ribbon like this as a symbol of love for Juliana. Patrick is pictured here leaving the Los Angeles criminal courthouse on Thursday afternoon, May 23rd 2013. Copyright Lonce LaMon, all rights reserved.
For a while before the Korean men arrived, Irene closed her eyes behind her rimless glasses, leaned her head back a bit, and just sat very quietly. It seemed as if she were trying to find that nirvana space the Buddha represents. Kim Park gets up and walks towards the door. She hugs one of the Korean men, who stands up, and then she hugs the other. “Thanks for coming guys,” she says to them. It can be guessed that they may be cousins from Keun-Sil’s (Kim, Kelly, and Kolleen’s father’s) side of the family.
The grief and the worry cannot be erased from Irene’s face. This situation has to be greater in agony than any mother could bear. To be faced with so much evidence against your own daughter with respect to a crime that is so horrific would have to crush you beyond repair. Only denial can spare the emotional, psychological, and spiritual self-destruction. If Irene can’t believe the evidence she is hearing, who can blame her.
The wait continues. Court closes at 4:15 pm. More read backs from the testimony to the jury are to happen on Tuesday. Court will not open on Tuesday, May 28th, 2013 until 1:30 pm as the judge has granted permission for one of the jurors to attend a funeral in the morning of that day.
Thus, court will open again on Tuesday, May 28th 2013 at 1:30 pm.
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