DURHAM, N.C. — The evidence technician in charge of collecting evidence after novelist Michael Peterson's wife was found dead was relatively inexperienced, had little sleep and missed things that could have helped blood spatter experts, the defense brought out through cross-examination Tuesday.

Prosecution witness Dan George withstood the barrage of questions from defense lawyer David Rudolf, but George gave the defense fodder for a future argument that shoddy police work rendered the blood spatter evidence useless.

It was George's third full day on the stand but Rudolf's first full opportunity to cross-examine the Durham police "tech" about decisions he made after viewing Kathleen Peterson's body. It lay at the base of a narrow, dimly lit staircase in the home she shared with her husband of less than five years.

Rudolf used textbooks on crime scene management and blood spatter interpretation to get George to agree that he and other police witnesses made mistakes that either contaminated the scene or made the jobs of experts who have yet to testify more difficult.

George had been an evidence technician just three years and was among the least experienced of 13 technicians who could have been assigned to collect evidence, jurors were told.

In addition to failing to collect items in the house that had blood on them, George did not photograph a trail of bloody footprints in the Peterson kitchen that were visible only after applying the chemical luminol, and he never recorded the finding in his initial report.

"That would have been an important thing to note, if you had seen it?" Rudolf asked.

"Yes, sir," George said. "It would have been important, but it was also witnessed by three other officers."

Despite the explanation, Rudolf challenged George's credibility by attacking a previous inconsistent statement. When asked at a pretrial hearing in March why he did not try to photograph the luminol reaction, George replied, "I can't answer that."

Prosecutors have inferred, but not said outright, that Michael Peterson was walking around his kitchen in bare feet but cleaned up his tracks before calling 911 to report that his wife had fallen down the stairs.

George agreed, under questioning, that defendant Michael Peterson walked all through the house in bare feet while police were there gathering evidence during the early morning hours of Dec. 9, 2001.

Sneakers and socks that the defense says belonged to Michael Peterson were found next to his wife's body. No explanation has been given by the prosecution or defense about how the sneakers and socks got there, but Rudolf noted that there was only a small amount of blood on the sneakers. Through his questions, he made the point that if Peterson had been wearing the sneakers and assaulted his wife with a fireplace poker — a prosecution claim —the sneakers would have been covered with blood.

Rudolf could question George all week about potential crime scene contamination and what the blood evidence does or does not show because of it, but to undo the worst damage George inflicted on the defense, Rudolf had to address the video jurors saw Friday.
 
In the video, made by George, jurors got a close-up of Kathleen Peterson's dead body. Her mouth and eyes were partly open. Blood was everywhere.

"We can agree those were pretty harrowing photos, correct?" Rudolf asked.

"Yes sir," George answered.

"It was meant to haunt us, raise emotions, wasn't it?" Rudolf asked minutes later.

George explained that he was trying to capture a blood drop on the victim's face, but Rudolf managed to convey his belief that prosecutors showed the video primarily for its shock value.

Over the objections of prosecutors, Rudolf quoted writer Susan Sontag's view that "harrowing" images can "haunt" people, but narratives explain things better. Rudolf noted that, other than a few sketches, George did not write any useful observations down 18 months ago.

George will be back on the witness stand when testimony resumes Wednesday at 1 p.m.

When the courtroom emptied, jurors followed Judge Orlando Hudson Jr.'s request that they use an emergency elevator instead of the bank of elevators directly outside Hudson's fifth-floor courtroom in the Durham Judicial Building. Although a juror rode in an elevator with Peterson and his family earlier Tuesday, the juror assured Hudson she did not overhear anything that would keep her from remaining fair and impartial.

The trial is being broadcast by Court TV.