thedrifter
01-10-07, 06:43 PM
Witness: Woman accused of poisoning her Marine husband had easy access to arsenic
By Lisa Sweetingham, Court TV
1 hour, 49 minutes ago
SAN DIEGO (Court TV) - With a simple Internet search, murder defendant Cynthia Sommer could have easily obtained the arsenic that appears to have slowly poisoned her Marine husband to death in February 2002.
But after three days of testimony from more than 30 witnesses, prosecutors have not presented jurors with any evidence that Sommer made a single attempt to secure the lethal poison.
Sommer faces life in prison without parole if she is convicted of murdering 23-year-old Sgt. Todd Sommer for his life insurance money. Prosecutors claim arsenic was an ideal poison choice: It is odorless, colorless and easy to obtain.
Special Agent Mary Jane Lewis, of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, testified Wednesday that she paid $25 for seven vials of arsenic she found on eBay. She used her credit card and gave her home address for shipping.
Lewis is the third agent to testify how easy it is purchase the poison - in liquid or powder form.
But Lewis conceded during cross-examination that her experiment certainly would have left an electronic paper trail from her computer's hard drive to her credit card statements and the eBay server. She admitted that she is still waiting to receive the seven-vial package, which she ordered on New Year's Eve.
Prosecutors have no such trail linking 33-year-old Cynthia Sommer to arsenic.
Moreover, the case against her largely is built on the fact that, according to witnesses, she acted inappropriately for a grieving widow: She had loud parties at the couple's home on the Marine Corp Air Station at Miramar, Calif., in the weeks after Todd's death. She spent part of his insurance policy on breast implant surgery, exactly two months after he collapsed and died on their bedroom floor. She also began a relationship with another Marine the same day as her surgery.
Defense attorney Robert Udell told the judge during a sidebar Wednesday that he expects to present evidence that Todd Sommer was likely exposed to arsenic during a Feb. 8, 2002, visit with his supervisor and a colleague to the Naval Air Facility in El Centro.
The Marines' day trip, a preliminary site visit in advance of an exercise to be held outside the El Centro base, occurred the same day Sommer began complaining of gastrointestinal distress - and just 10 days before he died.
Outside the presence of jurors, Udell noted that El Centro is a known toxic waste dump area.
According to public reports from the Department of Toxic Substances Control and the California Water Quality Regional Control Board, the Magazine Road Landfill at the Naval Air Facility in El Centro was used as a municipal landfill continuously from 1965 until 1983.
About 60 percent of the dumped waste was household rubbish produced on base. The rest, according to a DTSC report, included industrial waste, paint, asbestos, spent ammunition cartridges and other hazardous materials.
Testing conducted in 1997 and 1998 indicated metal arsenic levels exceeding the federal level requiring action. In 1998, a landfill cap was constructed over the site and the area has been regularly studied and monitored.
Deputy District Attorney Laura Gunn has previously stated that it is highly unlikely that Todd Sommer was exposed to lethal arsenic levels simply by walking over the ground near the El Centro base.
The judge also told Udell Thursday that it was "very highly speculative," given that Sommer's colleagues did not become ill and no evidence has been presented in court that any arsenic existed at the areas he visited, nor that he was ever exposed to the poison.
The two Marines who accompanied Sommer took the stand Wednesday to recall details of the site visit they made almost five years ago.
Master Sgt. Juan Mendez, Todd's supervisor at Miramar, sa id the three men drove to El Centro at about 6 a.m. in a government van.
They walked an empty field near the base, where the unit would take part in a future training exercise. They visited base headquarters. They stopped at a roadside gas station to buy snacks to eat in the car on their way back to San Diego.
He recalled that Todd ate an egg roll, and called the next day to complain of being sick, but came to work anyway.
"He was a good Marine," Mendez said. "He gave me the impression that I could trust him."
Mendez said the men never separated and Sommer never acted strangely.
"I suppose if someone did something extremely unusual, like picking up handfuls of dirt and eating them, you would remember something like that?" Deputy District Attorney Laura Gunn asked Mendez.
Mendez confirmed that no dirt was eaten by his men that day.
Gunnery Sgt. Klever Novillo described Sommer as an "easygoing guy," who was kind and never complained.
"He was a real good example of what a Marine should be," Novillo said.
Novillo, the safety HazMat representative for the unit, recalled that they also visited a HazMat area on the base, which he was not concerned by, noting that it was a waste storage facility and the base appeared to dispose of waste quickly.
Novillo said he ate a bag of chips and a Gatorade on the drive back to Miramar. He suffered no sickness after the visit.
But Todd Sommer became violently ill that evening, with nausea, chills, fever, vomiting, diarrhea and cramps. Base physicians gave him anti-nausea and diarrhea medications that seemed to help, but not for long.
He died at home on Feb. 18, 2002, in the middle of the night. An autopsy was inconclusive, and his body was cremated.
A year after Todd's death, heavy-metals testing on some of his tissues that were preserved revealed that he had more than 1,000 times the normal levels of arsenic in his liver, and elevated levels in his kidneys and other tissues.
Cynthia Sommer, the moth er of the couple's infant son, was arrested for murder in November 2005.
Although they can't link Sommer to arsenic, prosecutors expect to call several more witnesses who will testify that she was heavily in debt and liked to shop for everything from clothes to new breasts.
She killed her husband, prosecutors say, just to get her hands on his $250,000 life insurance policy.
The trial is being aired live on Court TV Extra.
More trial and crime news from Court TV
Ellie
By Lisa Sweetingham, Court TV
1 hour, 49 minutes ago
SAN DIEGO (Court TV) - With a simple Internet search, murder defendant Cynthia Sommer could have easily obtained the arsenic that appears to have slowly poisoned her Marine husband to death in February 2002.
But after three days of testimony from more than 30 witnesses, prosecutors have not presented jurors with any evidence that Sommer made a single attempt to secure the lethal poison.
Sommer faces life in prison without parole if she is convicted of murdering 23-year-old Sgt. Todd Sommer for his life insurance money. Prosecutors claim arsenic was an ideal poison choice: It is odorless, colorless and easy to obtain.
Special Agent Mary Jane Lewis, of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, testified Wednesday that she paid $25 for seven vials of arsenic she found on eBay. She used her credit card and gave her home address for shipping.
Lewis is the third agent to testify how easy it is purchase the poison - in liquid or powder form.
But Lewis conceded during cross-examination that her experiment certainly would have left an electronic paper trail from her computer's hard drive to her credit card statements and the eBay server. She admitted that she is still waiting to receive the seven-vial package, which she ordered on New Year's Eve.
Prosecutors have no such trail linking 33-year-old Cynthia Sommer to arsenic.
Moreover, the case against her largely is built on the fact that, according to witnesses, she acted inappropriately for a grieving widow: She had loud parties at the couple's home on the Marine Corp Air Station at Miramar, Calif., in the weeks after Todd's death. She spent part of his insurance policy on breast implant surgery, exactly two months after he collapsed and died on their bedroom floor. She also began a relationship with another Marine the same day as her surgery.
Defense attorney Robert Udell told the judge during a sidebar Wednesday that he expects to present evidence that Todd Sommer was likely exposed to arsenic during a Feb. 8, 2002, visit with his supervisor and a colleague to the Naval Air Facility in El Centro.
The Marines' day trip, a preliminary site visit in advance of an exercise to be held outside the El Centro base, occurred the same day Sommer began complaining of gastrointestinal distress - and just 10 days before he died.
Outside the presence of jurors, Udell noted that El Centro is a known toxic waste dump area.
According to public reports from the Department of Toxic Substances Control and the California Water Quality Regional Control Board, the Magazine Road Landfill at the Naval Air Facility in El Centro was used as a municipal landfill continuously from 1965 until 1983.
About 60 percent of the dumped waste was household rubbish produced on base. The rest, according to a DTSC report, included industrial waste, paint, asbestos, spent ammunition cartridges and other hazardous materials.
Testing conducted in 1997 and 1998 indicated metal arsenic levels exceeding the federal level requiring action. In 1998, a landfill cap was constructed over the site and the area has been regularly studied and monitored.
Deputy District Attorney Laura Gunn has previously stated that it is highly unlikely that Todd Sommer was exposed to lethal arsenic levels simply by walking over the ground near the El Centro base.
The judge also told Udell Thursday that it was "very highly speculative," given that Sommer's colleagues did not become ill and no evidence has been presented in court that any arsenic existed at the areas he visited, nor that he was ever exposed to the poison.
The two Marines who accompanied Sommer took the stand Wednesday to recall details of the site visit they made almost five years ago.
Master Sgt. Juan Mendez, Todd's supervisor at Miramar, sa id the three men drove to El Centro at about 6 a.m. in a government van.
They walked an empty field near the base, where the unit would take part in a future training exercise. They visited base headquarters. They stopped at a roadside gas station to buy snacks to eat in the car on their way back to San Diego.
He recalled that Todd ate an egg roll, and called the next day to complain of being sick, but came to work anyway.
"He was a good Marine," Mendez said. "He gave me the impression that I could trust him."
Mendez said the men never separated and Sommer never acted strangely.
"I suppose if someone did something extremely unusual, like picking up handfuls of dirt and eating them, you would remember something like that?" Deputy District Attorney Laura Gunn asked Mendez.
Mendez confirmed that no dirt was eaten by his men that day.
Gunnery Sgt. Klever Novillo described Sommer as an "easygoing guy," who was kind and never complained.
"He was a real good example of what a Marine should be," Novillo said.
Novillo, the safety HazMat representative for the unit, recalled that they also visited a HazMat area on the base, which he was not concerned by, noting that it was a waste storage facility and the base appeared to dispose of waste quickly.
Novillo said he ate a bag of chips and a Gatorade on the drive back to Miramar. He suffered no sickness after the visit.
But Todd Sommer became violently ill that evening, with nausea, chills, fever, vomiting, diarrhea and cramps. Base physicians gave him anti-nausea and diarrhea medications that seemed to help, but not for long.
He died at home on Feb. 18, 2002, in the middle of the night. An autopsy was inconclusive, and his body was cremated.
A year after Todd's death, heavy-metals testing on some of his tissues that were preserved revealed that he had more than 1,000 times the normal levels of arsenic in his liver, and elevated levels in his kidneys and other tissues.
Cynthia Sommer, the moth er of the couple's infant son, was arrested for murder in November 2005.
Although they can't link Sommer to arsenic, prosecutors expect to call several more witnesses who will testify that she was heavily in debt and liked to shop for everything from clothes to new breasts.
She killed her husband, prosecutors say, just to get her hands on his $250,000 life insurance policy.
The trial is being aired live on Court TV Extra.
More trial and crime news from Court TV
Ellie