{"id":53533,"date":"2019-09-26T12:35:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-26T20:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/fingerprint-expert-former-corrections-officer-testify-in-double-murder-trial\/"},"modified":"2019-09-26T12:35:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-26T20:35:00","slug":"fingerprint-expert-former-corrections-officer-testify-in-double-murder-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/fingerprint-expert-former-corrections-officer-testify-in-double-murder-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Fingerprint expert, former corrections officer testify in double murder trial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An expert from the Alaska State Crime Lab testified about fingerprints found in the apartment of one of the victims in a 2015 double murder in Douglas.<\/p>\n<p>Kurt Wilcoxson, a supervisor at the crime lab, gave testimony Thursday in the trial of Laron Carlton Graham, 42, for the 2015 murder of Elizabeth Tonsmeire, 34, and Robby Meireis, 36. Wilcoxson is a specialist in latent print comparison, and analyzed a number of objects found in Tonsmeire&rsquo;s apartment, including a grocery bag, a handgun magazine, some pipes and various drink bottles.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The best surface in the world is glass,&rdquo; Wilcoxson said during direct examination. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s nice and smooth, and takes a print real well.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/witnesses-talk-about-defendants-relationship-victims-phones\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><ins>[Witnesses talk about defendant&rsquo;s relationship, victims&rsquo; phones]<\/ins><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A number of fingerprints were identified on various surfaces, Wilcoxson said during direct examination, including prints from Tonsmeire and William Reyes, a prior witness in the trial who had been doing drugs at the apartment on the Friday evening before the murders.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re only gonna get bits and pieces of fingerprints,&rdquo; Wilcoxson said during direct examination. &ldquo;Sometimes the bits and pieces aren&rsquo;t enough to identify one.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Officer Ronald Shriver also testified. A police officer with the Juneau Police Department, Shriver was formerly a corrections officer at Lemon Creek Correctional Center. Before that, Shriver was a Marine military policeman. Shriver detailed video footage taken from the cell of James LeBlanc-Tweedy, a key witness for the prosecution. LeBlanc-Tweedy was housed next to Graham in the maximum security section of LCCC, and the two would often pass notes.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/former-probation-officer-mother-of-previous-witness-testifies\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><ins>[Former probation officer, mother of previous witness testifies]<\/ins><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not common when cells are next to each other,&rdquo; Shriver said during direct examination.<\/p>\n<p>In most cases where inmates wanted to communicate with their neighbor, they&rsquo;d just talk, Shriver said. That Graham passed notes and was afraid to be heard might indicate that he was afraid microphones were recording his conversations.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The cells do not have audio recording devices,&rdquo; Shriver said. &ldquo;There are some (inmates) that believe they are being recorded all the time.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The footage showed LeBlanc-Tweedy reading notes from Graham, becoming agitated, giving the camera the middle finger, and eventually going to bed.<\/p>\n<p>The prosecution has had 32 witnesses take the stand already, said defense attorney Natasha Norris, and is due to continue on Monday morning.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><b><\/p>\n<style><\/style>\n<p><\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>\u2022 Contact reporter Michael S. Lockett at 523-2271 or mlockett@juneauempire.com.<\/b><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More than 30 witnesses have testified. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":534,"featured_media":53534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[640,59],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-53533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-cops-and-courts","tag-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53533"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=53533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}