Kenneth Zercie

Kenneth Zercie testified for the defense as an expert in crime-scene investigation and related forensic disciplines. Drawing on body-camera footage, photographs, reports, and other materials he reviewed, he assessed how the Moselle scene had been protected, documented, and processed.

On direct examination, Zercie described accepted practices for contamination control, analytical photography, fingerprint development, trace-evidence preservation, and impression enhancement. He criticized entry into the feed room without protective footwear, said clothing and coverings associated with Paul and Maggie should have been preserved separately, and found no indication in the materials he reviewed of certain fingerprint, floor-sampling, and footwear-photography work. He concluded that substantially more processing could have been performed.

Cross-examination established the limits of his review. Zercie had not received the complete case file, visited the scene, interviewed witnesses, or prepared a written report, and he could not evaluate work that was absent from the materials he examined. He also disclosed his compensation and corrected his mistaken reading of the State examiner's footwear worksheet.

Zercie agreed with the State examiner's qualified footwear analysis: the photographs allowed comparisons of general outsole characteristics, but poor detail, missing scale, and possible contamination prevented a definitive conclusion. On redirect, he maintained that accepted protection, enhancement, and photography methods could have produced more useful detail under appropriate conditions, while acknowledging that he could not determine when the impressions were made or identify a particular shoe as their source.