The physician described to jurors the path cut by the bullet that split inside the brain of a Fort Worth police officer.
She testified that Garrett Hull died as a result of the gunshot wound and noted that the projectile fractured his skull.
And when on Thursday an attorney for Timothy Huff, whose trial is underway on a capital murder of a peace officer indictment in Hull’s death in 2018, suggested that an organ assessment was incomplete because Hull’s kidneys and liver were donated and not examined as part of an autopsy, Dr. Tasha Greenberg said that those parts of Hull’s body were inconsequential in his death.
Greenberg, who last month was promoted to the chief deputy post at the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office, did not perform Hull’s autopsy.
Rather, she reviewed and concurred with the conclusions in a report prepared by Dr. Marc Krouse, the forensic pathologist who did.
Krouse’s work has become a sticky wicket in homicide prosecutions since his departure in April 2021 from the medical examiner’s office.
Citing Greenberg’s indirect role in the Hull autopsy, a Huff attorney objected to her testimony. Judge George Gallagher, in Tarrant County’s 396th District Court, permitted her to offer an expert opinion.
Krouse is Greenberg’s predecessor as the office’s No. 2 physician.
He has testified in at least one other case, in U.S. District Court, since his departure, but prosecutors in the Huff trial appeared to prefer to offer the testimony of a former Krouse colleague.
Jurors heard that Krouse was no longer at the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office, but not of allegations that Krouse committed professional blunders that led to the expiration without renewal of his Tarrant County employment contract.
The Dallas County District Attorney’s Office was appointed to look at some of Krouse’s cases. Alfredo Olivares’ killing began an autopsy review.
The 19-year-old’s body was exhumed because Krouse missed a bullet during an internal examination.
A second autopsy revealed several problems with the first, according to a summary of an audit of Krouse’s cases.
In total, 41 of Krouse’s autopsies were examined, and about 50 mistakes were found in 27.
In most cases, the mistakes did not change the assignment of the cause or the manner of death.
Hull was shot dead during a robbery investigation in September 2018 while he and other officers were surveilling three men they suspected in 10 robberies that targeted people inside businesses and one house in Fort Worth. “Every single victim in every single case was Hispanic,” George Graham, then a Fort Worth Police Department robbery detective, testified.
Some of the victims described a suspect as dressing or presenting in a feminine manner or as if he was gay.
The suspect wore tight leggings that stopped at the calf. The description, Graham testified, sounded like Huff.
On the night of Sept. 13, 2018, Huff, Dacion Steptoe and Samuel Mayfield robbed people at a bar, Los Vaqueros on Biddison Street, at gunpoint, prosecutors allege.
As the suspects ran from the area, Steptoe shot Hull. Another officer shot Steptoe dead.
A trial date for Mayfield, who also was indicted on capital murder in Hull’s killing, has not been set.
During opening statements on Monday, prosecutor Lloyd Whelchel said that while Huff may not have pulled the trigger, he is guilty of capital murder because he should have anticipated the possibility that someone would be killed during the robberies.
Huff’s attorneys, William Harris and Patrick Curran, argue that Huff may not have been involved in the earlier robberies, and witness descriptions of the suspects varied in each of the crimes.
On Sept. 13, a police team planned surveillance of the suspects. Huff ran from the bar and police arrested him in the back yard of a house nearby.
Mayfield was arrested in a parking garage.
Also Thursday, an FBI special agent testified that cellphone, Google and Facebook data indicated that Huff appeared to be close to many of the robbery scenes.
The agent, Mark Sedwick, is assigned to the agency’s Cellular Analysis Survey Team. He testified that devices associated with Huff utilized towers that have coverage areas that include the crime scenes at about the times when the robberies occurred.
A cellphone number connected to Huff was often in communication with phones linked to Steptoe and Mayfield, Sedwick testified.
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/crime/article262373092.html
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
