EVERETT — For more than a week during the summer of 1995, Patti Berry was lying in a patch of woods where her killer had dumped her.
Her family had been frantically scouring Snohomish County for any sign of the young mother. Her body was found by children.
A Snohomish County jury on Wednesday saw video recorded at that crime scene more than 19 years ago as prosecutors continued to assemble their case against the man they hope to show is responsible for the “cold case” killing.
Danny Ross Giles, 46, is charged with first-degree murder. It wasn’t until 2008 that modern DNA tests reportedly linked him to genetic evidence recovered from the steering wheel of Berry’s blood-spattered car.
Giles’ attorneys say he’s the victim of an investigation flawed by shoddy police work and tunnel vision. Prosecutors have told jurors that forensic scientists will testify that chances of a random match between Giles’ genetic profile and the DNA on the steering wheel is 1 in 580 million.
They’ve spent the first days of the trial retracing steps investigators made nearly two decades ago. So much time has passed that most of the detectives who’ve testified so far are long retired or have moved on to other lines of work.
That was true for John Burgess, who served more than 21 years on the Everett Police Department and now works as a special investigator for a prosecutor’s office in Hawaii.
In the early days of the case, Berry’s killing was jointly investigated by the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office and Everett police. That’s because her body was found south of the Everett Mall, inside city limits.
Burgess, an Everett detective, helped gather evidence.
Under questioning by deputy prosecutor Bob Langbehn, Burgess explained that one of his assignments was to videotape key locations from a helicopter.
His tape began with images of the parking lot at Honey’s, a nude nightclub that used to be along Highway 99 south of Everett. Berry, 26, left there a few minutes before closing on July 31, 1995, after working her shift as a dancer.
Her family began looking for her the next day when she failed to pick up her 2-year-old daughter from a babysitter.
The video recorded the helicopter’s flight path: north from the club, over the highway, then east on Airport Road headed toward 128th Street SW.
The helicopter lingered over a car wash just west of the freeway. That’s where Berry’s car was found the evening after she disappeared. A search of the area the next morning turned up her blood-soaked jeans, draped over a bramble patch, along with several of the brightly colored outfits from her dancing bag.
The helicopter then turned north, headed toward Everett Mall and the place where Berry’s body was found.
Burgess explained that he shot a separate video there. He filmed as he ducked under the yellow police crime-scene tape and then took a slow walk around the perimeter.
Blood spattered in the car already had convinced detectives that Berry was fatally stabbed in her vehicle, pushed onto the back floorboards and then driven to the woods where she was left.
Joe Ward retired from the sheriff’s office in 2005 after 32 years, most of that time spent as a homicide detective. He earlier had told jurors that investigators didn’t want to risk destroying evidence by approaching Berry’s body on the same path the killer used to carry her into the woods. Instead, they hacked out a path from the opposite direction, checking constantly for anything potentially significant.
It was down that path that Burgess carried his video camera. He needed to document Berry’s position before anything was moved, he told jurors.
“We are now coming up on the location of the body,” he said as the video played. Berry, partially nude, was visible in the brush. Her arms and legs were akimbo, almost as if she was jumping over a hurdle. Sunlight and shadow moved across her as the wind stirred the trees above.
Some witnesses are testifying in stages because of the complexity of the case and the many years that have passed.
John Padilla, who was the lead detective on the Berry case during the first four years, showed jurors the blood-stained pants and dancer outfits he gathered up after she disappeared.
Neal Friedman, one of Giles’ public defenders, has made clear he intends to grill Padilla about how evidence mishandling in the Berry case ultimately contributed to his firing at the sheriff’s office. On Wednesday, though, Friedman’s questions for the former detective focused largely on how he collected the dance costumes, and whether investigators now have a better understanding about keeping DNA evidence from being compromised.
Scott North: 425-339-3431; north@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @snorthnews.
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