Jury told of Wilson DNA in Garcia car

A forensics expert testified Monday he found what was likely Christie Wilson's DNA inside Mario Flavio Garcia's car, including on an interior door panel and mixed with Garcia's blood in small stains on the back seat.

Shawn Kacer, a senior criminalist with the California Department of Justice, also said two hairs found in and on Garcia's car -- one stuck in the door handle and another in the trunk -- were almost certainly Wilson's.

Prosecutors offered the evidence as they prepared to conclude their case against Garcia, charged with Wilson's murder. The forensic evidence was intended to contradict Garcia's statement to investigators that Wilson was never in his car.

Lead prosecutor Garen Horst told jurors earlier in the case that Wilson was in the car and the car was a "crime scene."

Robert Blasier, a defense lawyer and DNA expert, challenged Kacer's conclusions and plans to continue his cross-examination this morning.

Wilson disappeared last year from the Thunder Valley Casino, near Lincoln. A security camera recorded her leaving the casino with Garcia at 1:13 a.m. on Oct. 5, 2005, and walking toward Garcia's car in the parking lot.

Wilson's friends and relatives testified they have not seen her or heard from her since. Investigators said that extensive searches have failed to find her body.

Garcia, charged with her killing, has been on trial for the past six weeks in Sacramento Superior Court. The case was moved from Placer County because of extensive pretrial publicity.

After Wilson disappeared, Garcia told investigators that he and Wilson had parted ways in the casino parking lot when she returned to retrieve her cell phone. The phone was later found on the casino floor.

On Monday, prosecutor Anne Marie Schubert called Kacer, the prosecution's next-to-last witness and a primary expert on DNA evidence.

Kacer said he spent 600 hours examining items in the investigation and comparing them with DNA samples from Garcia and Wilson. Wilson's DNA sample came from her electric toothbrush.

Kacer told jurors he found Wilson's DNA in two places on the inside of the rear driver's side door of Garcia's 2004 white Toyota Camry.

On the interior door handle, there was a mixture of male and female DNA, most likely belonging to Garcia and Wilson, Kacer said.

Most of the material was probably Wilson's, he said. Kacer estimated the odds of it belonging to anyone but her as one in 3.6 million.

"I could not exclude her as a major contributor to that mixture," Kacer said.

On the lower section of the driver's side rear door there was a patch of DNA that was probably all Wilson's, he said.

The odds that the DNA could be anyone but Wilson's were lower at one in 240,000, he said.

The DNA in both areas on the door might have come from either skin or saliva, but Kacer said he had found no blood on the door.

The odds against the hair stuck in the front passenger-side door handle being anyone's but Wilson's are 1 in 720 quintillion, Kacer told jurors.

Kacer used an analysis of 15 key markers on the DNA molecule's double helix to compare Wilson's toothbrush sample with the hair.

"And Christie Wilson's DNA matches at all 15 markers?" Schubert asked.

"Yes it does," Kacer replied.

He explained that no two human beings had ever matched on all 15 markers.

The hair in the trunk had an equally high probability of being Wilson's, he said.

Previous testimony showed the hair had root material attached and would have required some force, though perhaps as little as a comb pulling at a tangle, to be removed from Wilson's head.

Kacer said he had sampled blood stains on the driver's side back seat of Garcia's car and found they contained mostly Garcia's DNA but also smaller amounts of what was possibly Wilson's genetic material.

One stain was smeared and faded looking and required extra effort to collect usable DNA samples, he said.

"It's consistent with a mixture of two people," Kacer told jurors.

Others were tiny dots of blood in a tight location on the side of the back seat, that prosecutors suggested may have resulted from Wilson scratching Garcia.

In evidence photos taken shortly after Wilson disappeared, Garcia has scratches on his chest. He said he had fallen out of a tree that he was trimming at his house in Auburn.

In both blood-stained areas, there was an extremely high likelihood that Garcia's blood was present and a much lower probability that the stains contained Wilson's DNA, according to Kacer.

Defense lawyer Blasier, who served on O.J. Simpson's defense team, started his cross-examination Monday by challenging Kacer's assessment of the astronomical odds on DNA testing.

He didn't get far, however, before Placer Superior Court Judge Larry D. Gaddis called an end to the day's proceedings.

Today, prosecutors are expected to call a last witness to testify about mitochondrial DNA, a less precise form of DNA analysis, and could rest their case this afternoon.

At that point Garcia's defense team, led by lawyer Ron Peters, has the option of calling witnesses. Following trial Monday, Peters said he expects the defense case to last about two days.

In his opening statement Peters told jurors that Garcia would testify in the case. Outside court on Thursday, however, Peters said the defense team was still considering whether Garcia would testify.

"We're making those decisions," he said.