Time element complicating Oki case: Forensics expert

JAKARTA (JP): A forensics expert told a court hearing yesterday that after two years it would be difficult to determine the exact cause and time of death of the victims in the Los Angeles triple murder case.

Abdul Mun'im Idries, from the University of Indonesia's School of Medicine, said a two-year-old corpse poses great difficulties for examiners. The university's top forensic expert had been asked by lawyers to testify at the Central Jakarta District Court for 32-year-old Harnoko Dewantono, alias Oki. The defendant has been charged with murdering three people in Los Angeles between August 1991 and November 1992.

The three victims were Suresh Mirchandani, an Indian who was the defendant's partner; Indonesian woman Gina Sutan Aswar; and Oki's younger brother Tri Harto Darmawan, alias Eri. Their bodies were found in August 1994 in a warehouse locker at a U-Haul Storage facility in Los Angeles, after its contents had been auctioned off. The locker had been neglected for months.

Generally, he said, forensics experts can only determine with accuracy a corpse's identity and possible causes of death. It is much more difficult to determine when. After two years this task is made even more difficult, he said.

"It is difficult to say if Eri died after the other two victims," said Abdul Mun'im after examining forensic reports by experts from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).

In previous court sessions, the LAPD's forensic experts had suggested that the time of Eri's death was later due to the condition of his heart and lungs, which were heavier than the other victims'. But, explained Abdul Mun'im, because Eri had been more physically fit, this could explain why his lungs and heart were found in a stronger state.

Detectives and ballistic experts were also called to testify at hearings last year.

Regarding the Indian victim, Abdul Mun'im cited the LAPD's forensic reports, which said that Mirchandani had his chest cut open and his lungs and heart taken out while he was still alive.

However, Abdul Mun'im said that Mirchandani was clinically dead when his chest was opened -- meaning that the brain was dead even though the kidneys were still functioning. He was responding to lawyers' questions about whether or not the victim was alive or dead when cut open.

Abdul Mun'im said it was a fact that the victim's chest had been split open as blood remained in the wall of his chest. But this does not mean that Mirchandani was still alive, or that his heart was still pumping, as Los Angeles experts had suggested. Abdul Mun'im then suggested that the blood might not have come from the heart's arteries.

The Indian's body also had a bullet hole in it, but Abdul Mun'im said that it could not be determined from which direction the shots came from.

LAPD detective Ted Ball told the court earlier that he believed that Suresh had been shot from a short distance in a car driven by Oki.

Given the difficult examination of the bodies, Abdul Mun'im said a stronger basis for determining the circumstances of death could only come from witnesses. (07)