Tim Leeds Havre Daily News tleeds@havredailynews.com
After the judge resolved a morethan two-hour objection, the jury in the murder trial of Anthony St. Dennis, in Havre Thursday, listened to a 20-minute recording of a telephone conversation in which St. Dennis told a young woman he had killed a man and was going to jail. “I’m a murderer,” St. Dennis told Jackie Adams in the telephone call recorded from a holding cell in the Missoula County Detention Center on Dec. 6, 2007. St. Dennis, a 19-year-old Missoula resident, and Dustin Strahan of Missoula, 21, are accused of the beating death of Forrest Clayton Salcido, a 56-yearMissoula on Dec. 5, 2007. Missoula County Attorney Fred Van Valkenburg moved to introduce the recording after Missoula County Police Sgt. Sandy Kosena, who was the lead detective in the investigation, testified about her retrieving and listening to the recording at the secure Web site where it was stored. St. Dennis’ defense attorneys objected to the introduction of a compact disc recording of the telephone call, automatically recorded by a company contracted with the Missoula detention center to record outgoing calls. All outgoing calls except for calls to the accused’s attorneys are recorded and available for review by law enforcement officers and attorneys with passwords granting access to the site, witnesses testified. The defense, which in its opening arguments characterized St. Dennis’ comments in the call as an 18-year-old high school student’s attempts to be “macho” after being booked into jail, raised its objection about 11:45 a.m., Judge John Larson overruled the objection and admitted the CD about 2 p. m., after hearing arguments from both sides about its admissibility. After he ruled on the objection and the jury was re-seated in the courtroom, Missoula County Attorney Fred Van Valkenburg played the recording. At the start of the recording, the jury heard the system announcing that the call would be recorded and monitored, a message which staff members of the detention center testified is also posted at all phones for use of inmates in the facility. At the start of the call, made shortly after St. Dennis was booked into the jail after declining to be interviewed by law enforcement without a lawyer present, St. Dennis told Adams he had been arrested. “I’m busted I’m in jail ,” he told Adams. “I got 18 years with probably four suspended.” St. Dennis seemed upbeat during most of the conversation, although in a couple of spots sounded as if he might briefly be overcome by emotion. Comments about his arrest and jailing were alternated with small talk with Adams, such as talking about her being a “weird kisser” or telling her how “cool you are.” At one point St. Dennis also threatened Strahan, who turned himself in earlier in the day and implicated St. Dennis. “I’m going to beat the (expletive) out of Dustin as soon as I see him ,” St. Dennis said. “He called me, all freakin’ out, crying, saying, He’s dead.’” That comment was followed by what sounded like a loud belch. Strahan testified in the trial on Wednesday under an agreement that his testimony here would not be used against him in his own trial, scheduled for March in Great Falls. When asked, St. Dennis told Adams he was charged with deliberate homicide. “I know what homicide is. I killed the (expletive) ” he said. “He bit it.” St. Dennis added that it happened at the California Street bridge. Previous testimony by witnesses for the prosecution on Wednesday and Thursday talked about evidence that connected Strahan and St. Dennis to the beating and about the cause and manner of Salcido’s death. Expert witnesses from the Montana State Crime Lab testified that they found numerous blood stains on items of clothing seized from St. Dennis and Strahan and that tests of samples of the blood showed it was from Salcido. Forensic scientist Lacy Van Grinsven testified that she identified blood stains on the shoes seized from Strahan, 17 on the left shoe and 16 on the right. She also testified that one bloodstain on Strahan’s sweatshirt tested positive for blood. Van Grinsven said she tested 139 stains on St. Dennis sweatshirt, 112 of which tested positive for blood. On his “And 1” tennis shoes, she said she found 51 stains that tested positive for blood on the left shoe and 116 that tested positive on his right shoe. She also testified that most of the stains on St. Dennis’ shoes were in porous areas such as seams and shoe laces. When asked by Van Valkenburg, she testified that the smooth areas of the shoes, which had few stains, would be easier to clean off. Strahan testified Wednesday that St. Dennis had washed off his shoes after they returned to St. Dennis’ grandmother’s residence after the incident. Forensic scientist Phil Kinsey of the crime lab testified Wednesday that the representative blood stains tested by him showed they matched the DNA profile of Salcido. Two of the five stains tested appeared to be from a mixture of sources, but with Salcido being the primary source, he said. The other stains were from one source and matched Salcido’s profile, he said. Kinsey testified that the match with Salcido was close enough that there was only a chance of “one in 17 billion, 853 million” other Caucasians being the source of the blood. If the sample was of African- Americans or Southwest Hispanics, the other racial groups generally tested, the chance dropped, with the chance for African-Americans one in 1 trillion, 734 billion, he said. Scientists also testified that apparent shoe marks on Salcido’s body and clothing matched the size and tread pattern of the shoes seized from St. Dennis and Strahan, although the match was not perfect and they could not guarantee that they were the shoes that made the mark. In the initial testimony of forensic scientist William Schneck, hired by the defense to do their own analysis, he also said the tread patterns were “class specific” to the shoes in question, but there were no particular marks proving that they were in fact the shoes that made the marks. “There was nothing seen on the coveralls that had unique characteristics to that shoe opposed to all others,” he said about one mark compared to St. Dennis’ shoe. Medical examiner Dr. Gary Dale testified that, in his professional opinion, the cause of Salcido’s death was likely to be the blunt force trauma causing injuries to his head and neck, although he did not rule out drowning or obstruction of his airway or hypothermia. Dale testified that severe brain injuries resulted from the beating Salcido received, and that he also had an accumulation of bloody mucous in his air passages that could have led to his being unable to breathe. He said hypothermia also was a possible, though unlikely cause of death, but that also would have been related to the beating because Salcido would have been unable to get out of the elements. He said he cannot list any cause of death for certain because of the competing nature of the possible causes, but that the manner of death was definitely homicide. “It’s pretty clear, in my opinion, that he was beaten,” Dale testified, saying the beating was “definitely, directly or indirectly,” the cause of death while he was cross-examined by defense attorney Paulette Ferguson. old homeless man, near the California Street Foot Bridge in
