ALBANY, Ore. (Court TV) — Defense attorneys and a judge in Oregon were frustrated Friday when a planned four-hour motions hearing stalled after the prosecutor revealed she never required her expert witnesses to attend.
Jerod Norman sits in court at a hearing on Oct. 30, 2026. (Court TV)
Attorneys representing Jerod Norman, 42, filed a series of motions seeking to prevent expert witnesses from testifying in Norman’s trial on charges that he killed his girlfriend. A hearing scheduled to address the issues on Friday quickly derailed after Linn County Deputy District Attorney Coleen Cerda revealed that none of the experts was in court. She said one witness was unavailable, one had not responded to the request, and a third was never asked.
“This seems problematic,” Norman’s attorney, Cameron Taylor, said.
Norman is charged with second-degree murder and abuse of a corpse in the death of Mariah King, 30, who was found dead on July 18, 2025. King was found hanged in a shop on the property where the couple lived, but investigators grew suspicious about her death after an autopsy revealed an unfired rifle round lodged inside her body.
The expert whom prosecutors did not ask to attend the hearing was Dr. Bill Smock. In their motion asking that Smock not be allowed to testify, Norman’s attorneys described him as an expert in “staged homicides” and argued that he based his opinions about the victim’s death on evidence seized during an illegal search of Norman’s home. All evidence from that search was suppressed and Norman’s attorneys have argued that any theories formed from that evidence should also be barred from trial.
Cerda said she saw no need for Smock to be at the motions hearing and offered to make him available for voir dire before he testifies at trial. “I won’t mention him in the opening; I won’t,” Cerda said, saying that the voir dire “shouldn’t take an hour.”
“This is a significant issue,” Taylor said. “It requires the court to assess this doctor’s method, his analysis, his procedure. I had a rather complicated and extensive cross-examination prepared for today to unpack those issues. I know I can be long-winded, but even if I try my best, this is more than an hour’s worth of testimony.”
Cerda eventually said that Smock would be made available for a full day on Nov. 9 for voir dire. A second expert witness had not responded to her request to attend or to provide additional availability, Cerda said. Judge Keith Stein recommended Cerda issue a subpoena, and Cerda reluctantly agreed.
Taylor alerted the court on Friday that Oregon’s chief medical examiner noticed at a National Association of Medical Examiners conference that presenters discussed X-rays from King’s autopsy. Taylor said he had determined that the files were downloaded in 2024 from the medical examiner’s office and then shared with other entities.
“Is anything about this case going to proceed normally?” Stein wondered aloud.
Cerda agreed to help coordinate gathering documents showing how and when the files were shared and whether any disciplinary action was taken as a result.
Taylor raised a series of other issues he believes will become problems at trial, including questions about alleged prior bad acts the prosecutor intends to introduce and the defense’s plans to call Norman’s 11-year-old son as a witness.
“I’m just getting really nervous that our trial is going to be, ‘Hello jury,’ and then send them in and out 100 times the first day while we engage in what should have been pretrial hearings,” Stein said.
There will be two more voir dire hearings for the prosecution’s expert witnesses on Nov. 3 and 9; Norman’s trial is scheduled to begin on Nov. 30.
