Mr Mata

Where do you work?
Santa Cruz County Sheriff's office since 2001, assigned to the CSI Unit since May 2006.

September 2006, did you have any involvement with this case?
Initial involvement was September at the CSI garage. 

What was your involvement at the Love Creek Scene?
Arrived and checked in, I helped remove the body bag from down the ravine.


Were you there with anyone else?
I was there with Gidding and Verinski. 

Were they on the scene already?
 Yes.

What did you do at the scene?
 I saw Ben Lomond Firemen at the scene. I looked down the ravine, to see Gidding and Verinski, and then I helped pull the body bag up to the road.

So you never saw the body prior to it being placed in the body bag?
No, it was already sealed in the bag when I got there, I helped move the bag maybe 3-5ft from just below the road to the road itself. The body was then loaded into Rowland's Coroner van. I followed Rowland to the Morgue.

What did you do at the Morgue?
I took pictures of the body, I did not assist in opening the bag for pictures.

Did you take photos of AV's shoes and socks?
 Yes.

Do you recall seeing fox tails?
 I do not recall.

PEOPLES EXHIBIT 93
Photo, by Mata, of Asha's Shoes / Legs

Were you present for the autopsy?
No.


Did you help inspect Asha's BMW?
Yes.

How about Melissa McClish's van?
No, I was not there.


How about Michael McClish's truck?
Done without my assistance.


Later you went in the truck?
Yes, assisted February 23, 2007. And again April 25, 2007.

Were you involved with any tarps during this investigation?
 Yes, I collected tarps from evidence and cut swatches from them for analysis.

JMM-8#1: Tarp 1, brown, own bag, photographed, cut swatch, photographed swatch,
JMM-8#2&3: Tarp 2 and 3, brown tarps in 1 bag, cut swatches.
JMM-8#4&5: Tarp 4/5 swatches cut, lint and hair fell out of the bag.

**There were more tarps but none of them matched the tarp material collected from Asha, so I am going to hold off listing them.

The swatches were then sent to the crime lab.

Describe your involvement searching the truck.
I met with Lara Walker to take pictures of anything she found. She asked me to photograph the passenger seat. I then cut a swatch from the passenger seat, I never booked it into evidence because Lara Walker took it with her for analysis. She also took with her the bottle opener from the keys (**Think they said preliminary tests revealed blood on it).
We then took fox tails from the center console of the truck.

PEOPLES EXHIBIT 94
LW15, picture of fox tail near the center console/4WD shifter.

PEOPLES EXHIBIT 95
picture of the same fox tail with a ruler for scale.

And on April 27th?
Verinski, an assistant, Lara Walker and her assistant, and myself went over the truck again.

JMM7 is the scene for that day.

PEOPLES EXHIBIT 96
Photo of passenger flood board with jumper cables on the ground.

PEOPLES EXHIBIT 97
Photo of marker #5, near passenger kick panel, bloody fox tail found lodged in between metal/plastic cover.

PEOPLES EXHIBIT 98
Another close up of #5.

PEOPLES EXHIBIT 99
Orientation of #5, also shows #3, #7, #1 and #2 markers.

PEOPLES EXHIBIT 100
Photo of passenger area. Can see passenger seat with swatches cut out.


PEOPLES EXHIBIT 101
Photo of passenger seat, looking back at rear seat, back floorboard  area.

PEOPLES EXHIBIT 102
Photo of closeup of #1

PEOPLES EXHIBIT 103
Photo of closeup of #2

PEOPLES EXHIBIT 104
Photo of closeup of #7

PEOPLES EXHIBIT 105
Photo of center floorboard/4WD shifter.

PEOPLES EXHIBIT 106
Photo of PE105 closeup.

PEOPLES EXHIBIT 107
Photo of closeup of #9

PEOPLES EXHIBIT 108
Photo of closeup of #10

Were you documenting or collecting?Documenting.

**He stated he only got into the truck to remove the seats from the vehicle. This happened once all of the evidence had been collected.

**Cross examination was especially, for lack of a better word, pointless, with Mata. TW went over all the scenes, who was there, the process they did, everything he had already gone over. Then he moved his attention over to the table located in the CSI garage. He spent a lot of time trying to get the location of it explained, and then didn't go anywhere with that line of questioning.

**At this point McClish was undergoing some seizure like head wobbles, must have just been him shivering because the questioning wasn't about anything especially poignant. But it was unusual nonetheless.


Court adjourned for the day and questioning continued Monday.

TW wanted to know if he was involved in removing the seats from the truck (learn to listen TW, it was in his testimony previously). TW also asked who else was involved, Gidding and Verinski helped out according to Mata.

DA Jeff Rosell clarified that only Lara Walker was in the vehicle while evidence was collected, and she wore a tybex suit, and collected from standing outside the vehicle with only her upper body inside of it.


PEOPLES EXHIBIT 93
Photo of Asha's sock, which was covered in fox tails, as taken by Mata was shown.

PEOPLES EXHIBIT 109
Photo of truck from the passenger door, with it wide open.

PEOPLES EXHIBIT 110
Photo of the floor around passenger seat, focusing on the rear area, with the seat forward as far as it could go.