WOODLAND — Bloodstains on an adult-sized T-shirt and tissues found in the Davis residence Darnell Dorsey shared with his girlfriend and her two children matched the genetic profile of Cameron Morrison, the toddler Dorsey stands accused of fatally beating.
But when and how the blood got onto them, and whether the shirt even belonged to Dorsey, are issues that remain open to interpretation.
A California Department of Justice senior criminologist who performed DNA testing on the T-shirt, tissues and the blue track pants Cameron wore upon his Jan. 22, 2014, arrival at Sutter Davis Hospital with brain swelling and other severe injuries testified about his findings Friday in Yolo Superior Court.
Cameron Morrison was 20 months old when he died in January 2014. Courtesy photo
“The profile was a match to Cameron Morrison,” Nathan Himes said of genetic material found on the T-shirt bloodstains, which were just millimeters in width. The chances of finding another identical match in the population would be one in 6.5 quintillion African-Americans — a quintillion being “a billion billions,” he added.
Currently, the world’s population is about 7.4 billion.
“Those numbers provide strong evidence that Cameron Morrison is the source of that DNA,” Himes said. He assigned the same odds with bloodstains found on the leg of Cameron’s pants.
A moist baby wipe and several tissues pulled from a garbage can during a police search of the family’s Olive Drive mobile home also tested positive for Cameron’s blood, with two of the tissues showing a mixture of DNA that indicated there were at least two contributors of genetic material.
Cameron “could not be excluded” as the major contributor of that mixture, Himes testified, added that the chances of finding another person with the same profile would be one in 56 trillion African-Americans for one of the samples, and one in 170 trillion African-Americans for the other.
The minor DNA contributor has not been identified, Himes said.
Under cross-examination by defense attorney Martha Sequeira, Himes conceded that he had no way of knowing under what circumstances the blood came to be on the tissues and baby wipe, or from what area of the child’s body the blood originated.
He also acknowledged that he denied a request from Sequeira’s office to compare the DNA from two other people — their identities were not disclosed — to the minor contributor of the mixed DNA, saying the order would have to come from the prosecution or the court.
Himes agreed that the tissues he tested could have contained saliva or mucous mixed with a small amount of blood, as if they were used on someone suffering from a cold or pneumonia.
Dorsey’s attorneys contend Cameron had pneumonia when he died, the illness setting off a “cascade” of medical complications, including brain swelling due to respiratory distress and cardiac arrest, that doctors mistook for child-abuse injuries.
Darnell Dorsey appears in Yolo Superior Court to face charges in the death of his girlfriend’s son, Cameron Morrison. Sue Cockrell/Enterprise photo
Prosecutors allege Dorsey fatally beat Cameron, who is not his biological child, while caring for him and his older half-brother who is Dorsey’s son. Dorsey admitted shaking and slapping Cameron, claiming to have found him unconscious and possibly choking on food.
Paul Contini Jr., the brother of Cameron’s mother Veronica Rix, previously testified at trial that he found the bloodied T-shirt on a bedroom floor while cleaning up the Olive Drive mobile home around the time that the 20-month-old boy died at the UC Davis Medical Center.
By then, Davis police had already conducted an extensive search of the potential crime scene, leading Dorsey’s attorneys to question how officers had overlooked the shirt — a seemingly crucial piece of evidence — that Contini happened to find after the fact.
The defense also has elicited testimony that the shirt was a unisex brand, a suggestion that it could have belonged to Rix instead.
Dorsey’s trial resumes Monday in Judge Paul Richardson’s courtroom.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene