DNA analyst, police, retired medical professionals testify in decades-old Columbia rape, assault case
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Six witnesses testified to start the second day of a jury trial in a rape and assault case from 1984.
The jury heard from witnesses and investigators Wednesday. The jury was dismissed at 2 p.m. with the trial set to reconvene Thursday at 8:30 a.m.
James F. Wilson, 61, of Mooresville, North Carolina, is accused of raping and repeatedly stabbing a 17-year-old girl in the throat in the 4000 block of Wellington Drive in northeast Columbia on March 24, 1984. The woman testified Tuesday against Wilson.
The case went cold for nearly four decades. It was reopened for further investigation by the Columbia Police Department in 2020. The 1984 sexual assault kit conducted at University Hospital was sent for forensic DNA testing that ultimately led detectives to Wilson.
Wilson was arrested and charged with rape and first-degree assault with a deadly weapon in 2022. He pleaded not guilty.
The Columbia detective who reopened the cold case, Renee Wilbarger, testified Wednesday. She told the jury she compiled physical evidence, photographs, past police reports, witness statements and DNA evidence when reopening this case.
Wilbarger sent the 1984 sexual assault kit to Sorenson Forensics in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2020 to be tested. Former DNA forensic scientist Samantha Cabrera, of Sorenson Forensics, was unable to appear in court Wednesday. Her testimony was prerecorded on Nov. 13.
Cabrera said in June 2020 Walbarger requested testing a swab from a sex crime case.
Prosecuting Attorney Susan Boresi had Cabrera describe what was in nine different envelopes of evidence, which included hair from the scene, along with bodily fluids and fingernail scrapings.
Cabrera said in the recording she was able to develop two separate DNA profiles from a swab: One from the victim and one from an unknown male. After her analysis, she said in the video that it's standard protocol to have other experts look over her conclusions and either support or refute it.
“Every report written up will get peer-reviewed by at least two other individuals,” Cabrera said in the video.
Cabrera stated all three data analysts confirmed the two DNA profiles made from the 1984 sexual assault kit. Defense attorney Kaitlyn Bullard asked Cabrera how many times she talked with the prosecutor before testifying.
Cabrera said she had only spoke with Boresi twice before.
Cabrera said analysts with Sorenson Forensics have also testified in courts for defense and private persons.
What happened after receiving the suspect's DNA profile
Wilbarger told the jury that CPD requested a family tree be built, based on the unknown male profile. Three suspects were found through familial matches to the DNA profile.
The suspect pool included James Wilson, his brother and cousin.
Bullard questioned Wilbarger on why she chose to use a private laboratory like Sorenson Forensics. Bullard also asked Wilbarger about the condition of the then 38-year-old kit.
“You don’t know how often it had been moved around,” Bullard said. "What conditions it might have been exposed to.”
“I had no way of knowing that information,” Wilbarger said.
"You opened it before you sent it for testing," Bullard said.
Wilbarger confirmed the statement to the defense attorney and said when it was opened during the reopening of the investigation, she didn’t take any photos of its condition before sending it to Sorenson Forensics.
Yearbook photo resembled suspect sketch
Wilbarger stated the DNA profile of the unknown male did not match any in the Combined DNA Index System, a nationwide database of forensic profiles. So ,she starting doing research on the three men in the suspect pool.
Wilson's cousin was not the same age as Wilson and had no ties to Columbia in 1984, according to Wilbarger.
The detective stated on the stand that Wilson and his brother both lived in Columbia during that time. Wilbarger saw on James Wilson's Facebook profile that he graduated from Rock Bridge High School in 1981.
She reviewed the yearbook archives at the Daniel Boone Regional Library and was able to locate his photograph, which she said had a resemblance to the composite sketch of the suspect made in 1984.
Boresi gave a photo of the yearbook page to Wilbarger and asked her to circle his photo with a red pen. They showed his photo next to the composite sketch to the jury.
Wilbarger said the detective used records to find Wilson drove the same-colored vehicle described in 1984. Bullard asked Wilbarger if searching yearbook photos was something she had done in other cases.
Wilbarger said she knew that resource was always available during investigations, but that that was the first time she had used the yearbook archives.
Making the arrest
North Carolina authorities and Columbia police arrested Wilson in October 2022. He was arrested at his home, according to previous reporting.
CPD Lt. Matthew Gremore was a detective with CPD when he assisted in the arrest. His testimony Wednesday lasted for more than an hour and included audio and video recordings from interrogations in North Carolina.
On Oct. 27, 2022, Gremore and Wilbarger interviewed Wilson at the Mooresville Police Department and questioned him about his connection to the case.
Video of that interview was played in court for the jury.
"There was an altercation with a female back in 1984," Gremore said in the video. "I want to know your side of the story of what happened."
"I don't know exactly what you're talking about," Wilson said in the video. "If I beat up a woman I don't remember beating up a woman."
"Well I think this goes a little bit beyond that," Gremore said in the video.
"Oh you're talking about rape," Wilson said in the video. "If you're talking about rape, no I didn't do that. I didn't rape nobody."
"Let me ask you this because I didn't say anything like that," Gremore said in the video. "What makes you jump straight to rape?"
"Well if you're looking for my DNA, obviously I must have raped her," Wilson said in the video.
After a few more questions, Gremore said they were not able to get any additional information out of Wilson. Gremore wrote down his phone number and left it with Wilson.
Gremore stated that about an hour and a half after returning to his hotel room, he received a call. He saw it was coming from the jail, so he set up a recording before answering. It was Wilson calling from the jail.
The audio recording from that phone call was played for the jury Wednesday. Wilson asked what the range of punishment would be if he admitted to a crime, and Gremore said he couldn't make any promises about charges or punishments.
Wilson stated that he didn't want to go back to Columbia and "lose his family," according to the recording.
Wilson then told Gremore that he wanted to confess.
"I can’t go to jail," Wilson said in the video. "I can do community service or probation."
Wilson said in the video that he was at a point in his life during that incident where he was drinking and using drugs. He said he didn’t know what came over him.
"I think of that every single day and it tears me up," Wilson said in the video.
"When people ask me why I'm upset or angry or down, it’s this," Wilson said in the video.
“What made you pick her,” Gremore said in the video.
“No reason at all,” Wilson said in the video. “There was nothing special about her."
While Gremore was on the stand Wednesday, the prosecutor asked if Wilson ever asked how the victim was or if she had lived during those meetings. Gremore said he expressed no interest in knowing the answers to those questions.
In the video, Wilson said he saw the victim walking on Providence Road when he decided to grab her.
“I had a pocket knife so I kind of used a pocket knife to get her to the car,” Wilson said in the video.
After Wilson talked about the sexual assault in graphic detail, Gremore asked him why he decided to stab her.
“I’m a little small down there so it annoyed me," Wilson said in the video. "I was frustrated I couldn’t get it in there."
Wilson said in the video something came over him. He could remember her saying “please don’t” as he stabbed her. He said he remembered leaving her in the grass where he had stabbed her but does not remember taking her body to the creek.
Wilson told Gremore in the video that he was glad to get it off his chest.
"I’ve been reserved most of my life and this is why," Wilson said in the video.
Wilson said in the video that he thinks he buried the knife in the backyard of his childhood home.
Gremore testified today that CPD checked that backyard and a knife was never found.
Surgical resident who treated victim in emergency room
Dr. Thomas Schneider, a Jefferson City pulmonologist, took the witness stand on Wednesday. He was a surgical resident from 1981-84 at University Hospital. Schneider stated he treated the victim in the emergency room on March 24, 1984.
“Her trachea was cut in half," Schneider said. "You could see her vocal cords.”
He told the jury he remembered the patient was struggling to breathe through her nose due to her injuries.
“She was breathing through her neck,” Schneider said.
Boresi asked Schneider if the victim would have been able to scream or call for help. He said her vocal cords were inoperable because no air was able to get to them because of the deep cuts.
Schneider said her injuries were life-threatening.
Registered nurse who was present during rape kit
Retired registered nurse Barbara Lovingood-Miller also took the witness stand Wednesday. She was an emergency room nurse at University Hospital in 1984.
Miller told the jury she often took notes for hospital records as the physician treated patients. In 1984, those records were handwritten.
Boresi handed Miller clinic notes from March 24, 1984, on the witness stand. Miller testified that the signature on the document was hers and that she was a bedside nurse to that patient.
Miller said she took the victim to the operating room and stayed by her bedside to comfort her as the physician conducted her sexual assault examination.
“I held her hand during the whole procedure,” Miller said.
Miller said she also placed the envelopes of specimens inside the kit box as the physician collected them. Boresi presented the original sexual assault kit to the jury and held up the envelopes that had Miller's and the doctor's signatures.
