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State v. Bondurant3/20/1998
hrew it out the window while driving down Westpoint Highway.
In February 1990, Denise talked to the authorities about the victim's murder. During this time, Denise continued to see the defendant, and the defendant stayed with her two nights a week. Denise gave a written statement to T.B.I. Special Agent Coleman on May 1, 1990. After that, Denise had several meetings with the district attorney's office and with police authorities, although some of the meetings concerned other cases.
Denise admitted that she had lied in her previous statement to Dickey and Roberts in order to protect the defendant. Denise indicated that she waited to talk to authorities because she was afraid of the defendant and Pete after the Dugger murder. Denise testified that she had been told if she went to any law enforcement officials about what happened to Dugger, the defendant and Pete would blame the whole thing on her. The defendant asked Denise if she wanted to have her baby in prison and asked who she thought the authorities would believe. Denise did not file for divorce from the defendant until June 1990, after the defendant was arrested. She explained that there was no point in filing for divorce sooner because the defendant had told her "united we stand and divided we fall." On redirect, Denise explained that the defendant's statement meant that as long as the three of them stood together, nobody would go to jail; however, if one of them were to fall, all would go to jail.
On cross-examination, Denise admitted she had disobeyed a court order allowing the defendant's parents visitation of their grandchild and that a contempt petition had been filed against her. Denise also admitted that she had used drugs, only stopping while she was pregnant, and then starting up again until the defendant's arrest.
After taking Denise's statements on May 1, 1990, Agent Coleman obtained a warrant to search the residence in Westpoint for bone fragments or any other human body parts. On May 8, Agent Coleman went to the residence with a team of forensic anthropologists and the State Fire Marshall's Office. After the Fire Marshall's trained accelerant detection dog alerted on an area determined to be the spot described by Denise, the anthropologist began digging. Denise, who arrived later, confirmed that the anthropologists were digging where the defendant said he burned the body. The presence of evaporated kerosene was identified in one of the soil samples taken from the location.
Dr. William M. Bass, head of the anthropology department at the University of Tennessee, was in charge of the excavation at the Bondurant property in Westpoint. Their excavation revealed burned human cranial fragments mixed with charcoal and burned soil. Dr. Bass found seven cranial bone fragments that were large enough to make positive identifications. While the other bone fragments were too small to positively identify the area of the skull they came from, he was certain that they were human skull fragments. From studying the larger fragments, Dr. Bass testified that the bones appeared to have been broken before being burned, and that the irregular broken edges suggested that blunt trauma had occurred. He was more than 50% certain that some force had been applied to the skull before it was burned. Moreover, based on the thickness of six larger fragments that could be measured, Dr. Bass was 75% certain that the bones were from a human male, and he was 90% certain that the bones had been there one to fifteen years.
Several witnesses testified on behalf of the defense. Kathrine McCloskie, the victim's neighbor, testified that she saw the victim mowing his yard on Monday, October 20, 1986. McCloskie also sa
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