Savory's attempted murder trial expected to end today

KINGMAN - The prosecution in the William Michael Savory attempted murder trial ended its case Tuesday afternoon. The defense is expected to continue into Thursday.

Held in Division 6 of the Mohave County Superior Court before Judge Pro Tempore Richard Weiss, Deputy County Attorney Greg McPhillips opened the testimony Tuesday with a description of the alleged attack on February 22, 2001.

"Billy Savory and Sam Bersane beat Lisa Bracamonte in the back of a car until she was unconscious," he told the 12-member jury. "When she wakes up, she's cold, doesn't know where she is. She's bleeding. Her throat has been cut."

Savory's attorney, Randolph Wolfson of Bullhead City, using a computerized projection display, countered in his opening statement that the victim lied to investigators and was an admitted drug user.

"There is no evidence to connect my client to this crime," he said.

Only three witnesses were called by the prosecution. The first was Paramedic Deborah Muston, with the Golden Shores Fire Department, who recounted finding the victim the morning of February 23, 2001, bloody, bruised, and suffering from hypothermia.

"She was cold to the touch and her blood pressure was down," she said.

The victim was talking, said Muston, and when asked if she had been raped, Bracamonte said, "she was not."

Wolfson hammered Muston on much of her testimony, particularly about the difficulty in starting an IV, which Muston said was probably due to the victim's low temperature. She later admitted that "drug use" was also a possibility for the difficulty.

He also challenged Muston's written report on the incident, which Wolfson said contained statements that were inconsistent with her testimony.

McPhillips argued that the report was "hearsay" and should not be allowed into evidence. Weiss agreed.

The second witness was Bracamonte who described, sometimes through tears, the attack that she said began on the evening of February 22, 2001, near Marble Canyon and Miracle Mile in Bullhead City, when she went with Sam Bersane in his 1988 Camaro believing she and Bersane, whose nickname, she said was "Looney," and Savory, whom she called "Dizzy," were all going to dinner.

At the time, Savory reportedly was dating Kim Bersane, Sam Bersane's aunt. The attack was triggered, Bracamonte contends, because Sam Bersane believed Savory and she had had a relationship.

"Sam started accusing me of things that didn't happen," she said. "Sam said how could I disrespect his aunt?"

She said while they were all standing beside the car, Sam Bersane struck her in the face and then turned to Savory and said, "You better take care of your business!" That was when "Billy" Savory struck her and knocked her down, she said.

When she tried to pull her purse from the car and run, she said, "Sam pulled me by the hair into the car" and started "choking me."

Another acquaintance, Dave Dominguez, she said, began driving, with Ricky Duralia in the passenger seat. Bracamonte said she sat between Bersane and Savory in the back seat and the two men beat her. At one point she said she felt several "pokes" in her right forearm, after which her arm "felt like it was on fire."

Shortly after that, Bracamonte said, she lost consciousness.

She said Bersane and Savory went through her purse and found a locked jewelry box she said contained pictures of her children.

"Billy was shaking me, saying, 'What's the number?'" she said.

Bracamonte said she heard arguing among the four men with Dominguez and Duralia demanding she be let go.

"I heard Billy say, 'You've got to die,'" she said.

Bersane was found guilty in November of last year for attempted murder, kidnapping, and aggravated assault and sentenced to 27 years in prison.

Savory faces the same charges.

Ricky Duralia was acquitted in a previous trial.

Wolfson attacked Bracamonte's testimony claiming that because of her unconsciousness she would have been unable to clearly understand what was going on and who was doing what.

He also challenged her initial statement to Mohave County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) detectives, when she claimed she had been attacked while hitchhiking on Highway 95 by "three bald-headed gentlemen in a white car."

She told the lie, she said, "because Sam Bersane threatened my children," she blurted out.

The defense also drilled on Bracamonte's history as a "recovering methamphetamine addict," the some half-dozen lies she admittedly told to investigators and statements that he claimed were inconstant with statements she made in previous trials.

Bracamonte became so upset at one point that she told Weiss she was going to be sick and a ten-minute recess was called.

The final witness for the prosecution was MCSO evidence technician and crime scene investigator Harry Traxler who described Bracamonte's wounds, and the bits of blood evidence found spattered over rocks where she was found. He said he did not test or preserve the blood.

The defense focused keenly on the evidence Traxler did not collect or analyze.

"None of the victim's clothing was checked for fiber or hair? . . . There was no evidence of pubic hair or sperm? . . . No check on any of the blood found to see if it belonged to the suspects?" Wolfson asked.

To each question, Traxler calmly affirmed, "No."

The defense also pointed out that Traxler had recovered a wooden handled knife from Bersane's car along with razor knives, but that none of them were found to contain fingerprints or blood.

"That's correct," said Traxler. "I attempted to recover evidence, but it had been a month since I had a chance to examine it."

The prosecution rested after Traxler's testimony.

Weiss questioned, and later dismissed one juror who complained of ill health, leaving one alternate remaining for the 12 jurors.

On Wednesday the defense opened with retired Glendale, Calif., Police Department Sergeant Thomas Thate, who told the court that his 27 years in law enforcement included his participation in two major homicide task forces: the Hillside Strangler and the Night Stalker cases. He was called by Wolfson to counter Traxler's investigation and testimony, and claims made by the victim.

Using photos of the victim's various injuries to her legs, thigh, arms, wrists, and face, Thate said that in his opinion, the injuries were indicative of a "sexual attack," and should have warranted the use of a "rape kit" to determine whether or not such an assault had taken place.

"I would collect everything I felt was evidence," he said.

"Would blood droplets be considered evidence to be collected?" Wolfson asked.

"It would be mandatory," Thate replied. "I would want to eliminate who it belonged to."

Thate said any fibers or hair should have been collected from Bersane's 1988 Camaro and analyzed.

He also said he was familiar with the 1988 Camaro and testified that he did not believe the backseat area provided enough room for three people as Bracamonte had stated.

Thate was also was critical of the apparent failure by investigators to "preserve the crime scene," including their failure to make plaster casts of tire marks at the scene. Much of the road that Traxler claimed was "hard pack" and would not hold a print or track, Thate claimed, was actually soft and easily bore tire marks and footprints; and that, following the measurements in the investigator's report, the victim would have been lying in the water and not on the shore as reported.

During McPhillips' cross-examination, however, Thate admitted that his examination of the area was done more than a year after the fact and that since then the road could have been graded and the water level of the Colorado River had likely changed.

He also agreed with the prosecution's contention that the outcome of the investigation would not have changed had the blood spatter turned out to have come from the victim, as Traxler surmised, nor if an analysis of fibers and hair confirmed they belonged to the suspects and victim.

Wolfson also called Dr. Donald Schieve, retired ophthalmologist and former Mohave County medical examiner, to refute the prosecution's contention that Bracamonte had not been sexually assaulted.

Using the same photographs, Schieve agreed that Bracamonte's injuries were consistent with a "possible sexual assault."

The defense, through Schieve, also focused tediously on medical reports describing Bracamonte's condition at the time she was admitted to the hospital, and on an EMT report, which Weiss previously denied as evidence, drawing repeated objections by McPhillips.

Schieve also said it did not appear, as Muston testified, that hypothermia prevented emergency crews from starting an IV on the victim.

"She was not hypothermic," he said. "She had essentially normal vital signs."

The victim's claim that she had been repeatedly choked into unconsciousness was also disputed by Schieve who said had that been the case there would be bruising on her throat.

"I don't see anything I would identify as a contusion or a bruise," he said.

The prosecution raised several objections claiming no legal "foundation" to Wolfson's asking the former medical examiner to name the type of drugs that might cause the burning sensation in her arm Bracamonte claimed she felt after being "poked" several times during the attack, presumably in an effort by the defense to challenge the victim's credibility as a witness.

Testimony was not completed Wednesday, as attorneys had predicted. The defense is expected to resume with Schieve today.

Savory has been charged with attempted first-degree murder, kidnapping and aggravated assault. Wolfson said he does not anticipate calling his client to the stand.

Both sides said they expect the case to be turned over to the jury by Thursday afternoon.

[Note:  The jury found Mr. Savory was  not guilty of attempted murder in this case but was held for sentencing on the jury's guilty verdict of kidnapping/aggravated assault].