Dr. Henry Lee, regarded as one of the best criminologists in the world, testified on behalf of Rae Carruth, the former Carolina Panther accused of masterminding the fatal shooting of a woman pregnant with his child.

No jurors, however, saw Lee try to poke holes in the state's version of the crime. Because of a scheduling conflict, Lee's testimony was videotaped Wednesday night for use next week, when the defense expects to open its case.

What jurors will likely hear is Lee casting doubt on the prosecution contention that Carruth was at the scene of the drive-by shooting of Cherica Adams and actually helped kill her by pinning in her vehicle.

According to Lee, the angles of bullet holes in Adams' body and in her car suggest Carruth's SUV was not directly in front of her as depicted in an alarming state diagram.

That assertion conflicts with the deathbed account of Adams and the trial testimony of Michael Kennedy, a Carruth co-defendant who admits to being the "wheelman" in the Nov. 16, 1999 shooting.

Kennedy testified that Adams was driving down a dark road behind Carruth's SUV when he slammed on the breaks, blocking Adams path and allowing a car carrying Kennedy and triggerman Van Brett Watkins to pull alongside her vehicle. Watkins, Kennedy said, then fired five bullets into her car.

His account corroborated the deathbed notes of Adams, who wrote that Carruth "was driving in front of me and stopped in the road and a car pulled up beside me and he blocked the front and never came back."

But Lee testified that the angles of the bullets suggest otherwise. He said a state diagram which shows Carruth's SUV blocking Adams vehicle as she angles to escape is wrong. The first three bullets, he said, entered the car at a 90-degree angle, indicating that the cars were parallel.

The angle of the last two shots suggests that Adams vehicle was slightly ahead of the shooter. One explanation for the angle, Lee said, is that her car was moving forward. Lee said Adams' wounds indicate she was slumping over in the seat, making it difficult for her to keep her foot on the brake. If Carruth was directly in front of her, she would have struck his car, Lee said. But her vehicle shows no indication of an impact.

On cross-examination, prosecutor Gentry Caudill got Lee to admit that the angle of the last two shots could have been formed by Adams' car drifting only a few inches ahead but not enough to make impact with Carruth's SUV. Lee also acknowledged that position of her car may have nothing to do with the angle. It is possible the shooter changed positions or Adams' body shifted, Lee said.

After court, Rudolf said Lee's testimony supported Carruth's claim that he was miles away when Adams was shot.

"If her car was moving it only makes sense she would've gone into the back of his car — if he was there," the defense attorney said.

Lee is being paid $175 per hour for his work on the case.

Lee, the first Asian-American to serve as Public Safety Commissioner of Connecticut, provided key testimony for Simpson, charged with murdering ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.

During Simpson's 1995 criminal trial, Lee said that there was "something wrong" with the Los Angeles Police Department's handling of the evidence. He also cast doubt on prosecutors' contention that one set of footprints found at the crime scene were consistent with the theory that Simpson went to his ex-wife's home and committed the murder. Lee told the jury that his analysis of photographs revealed a second set of imprints on the ground, on Goldman's clothing and on other evidence at the scene, lending to the defense's notion that the crime was committed by more than one person.

Lee's testimony was considered a key reason that the jury in the "trial of the century" acquitted Simpson.

The 62-year-old criminologist's resume includes other high-profile cases, including the Jon Benet Ramsey grand jury investigation, the rape trial of William Kennedy Smith and the investigation of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco.

Most recently Lee made headlines for a more lighthearted endeavor. He has teamed up with singer Wayne Newton to find the lost grave of Pocahontas, the Native American princess who befriended Jamestown settlers in the 17th century.

Born in China, Lee's family fled to Taiwan during World War II. His father was killed by communists, and his mother raised Lee and his 12 siblings.

He began his law enforcement career as a police captain in Taipei before coming to the United States in 1965. Once here, he attended John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and went on to earn his doctorate in biochemistry from New York University.

After serving as director of Connecticut's crime laboratory, he was tapped as public safety commissioner — but kept his promise to step down from the post as head of the state police to pursue his other work.