STATE'S OPENING STATEMENT


MR. PORTER: Good morning.

          [Jurors respond]
MR. PORTER: As the judge previously introduced to
you, my name is Danny Porter, and I'm the district
attorney, and I represent the people of the State of
Georgia in the case of the State v. Michael Harold
Chapel.
          The burden rests on the state to prove that the defendant is 
guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the
charges of malice murder, felony murder, armed robbery,
and possession of a firearm during the commission of a
felony. And we intend to present evidence to you over
the next few days that will in fact prove that Michael
Harold Chapel is guilty,
          I'd like you to take a moment to orient yourself
as to where these incidents that we'll be describing
occurred. This is an aerial photograph of the northern
end of Gwinnett County or at least a portion of it that
involves Peachtree Industrial Boulevard as it runs from
Duluth at this end to Buford at this end, It's
intersected here by Georgia 20, which runs from
Lawrenceville all the way to Cumming. This is the
intersection of Peachtree Industrial Boulevard and
Georgia 20.
          The incident itself occurred at the Gwinnco
Muffler Shop, which is located here on Peachtree
industrial Boulevard right south of where the road goes
from a four-lane to a two-lane, There are roads that
intersect here and here and here that will all be
referred to in the testimony. And this is the area
which we'll be dealing with over the next few weeks,
          Now, on the morning of April 16, 1993, at the
Gwinnco Muffler Shop, two men came in about ten minutes
of eight. The first was Theron Smith. He was going
there to have a car repaired. And about ten minutes
after he arrived, the owner of the store, Joe Byars,
arrived to open up. Gwinnco Muffler opens at eight and
people get there early just like everybody else does in a
service center.
          They both noticed, as they drove in, parked in the
driveway, a brown Lincoln Continental with a person
slumped over the wheel, slumped actually into the
passenger side. The window was down, even though the
morning was cold, and the left front tire was flat.
          Neither man really thought much about it one way
or the other and went on about their business until just
right at eight o'clock. They thought the person might
need some assistance, so they both walked down and made
the discovery of the body of Emogene Thompson, a person
they had previously thought was asleep or might be in
trouble. The way they made that discovery is because of
the blood splatter on the front seat of the car and the
dash and on the passenger side and on her face and hands.
          The car -- once they made that discovery,
immediately the police were called. The police began to
seal the scene and process it. It was discovered that
the car was there with the window down, it had power
windows, the doors were locked, the ignition was on, and the left front tire had been punctured.
          Ms. Emogene had been shot twice. As a later
autopsy revealed, the first shot entered her head here
and exited somewhere around her right eye. The second
shot went into her neck here at her hairline and exited
to the right upper portion of her skull. Both wounds
were fatal, although the evidence will show that between
the first and second shot, Emogene Thompson was alive,
          The scene was then processed and photographed, and
you'll see those photographs and the videotape of the
crime scene as it was that morning, And that -- as I
said, the autopsy was performed by the Gwinnett County
medical examiner. Blood was drawn from Ms. Thompson for
later testing, and we'll talk about that in just a
minute,
          So the police were left at this point with a body,
a car, and an investigation. And that investigation
began right away. And it began on several fronts. The
first that you'll hear about is that the police began to
run roadblocks in front of the Gwinnco Muffler. They ran
them for four nights in the hope that someone who had
been driving by the night of April 15 or the early
morning hours of the I6th had seen something. And, in
fact, there were people who drove by that had seen
something.

          The witnesses' picture began to emerge that at
approximately 9:30 on April 15, witnesses saw a Gwinnett
County police car parked in the Gwinnco Muffler driveway
facing towards Peachtree Industrial Boulevard. Some of
those witnesses saw the car with the headlights on, some
of them saw the car with the dome lights on, and some of
them even saw a large white male with brown hair seated
behind the driver's side of the police car. And that was
at about 9:30 on April 15.
          Other witnesses who came along a little later,
between 9:30 and 9:45, saw what they described as a
person getting a ticket They saw a police car, they saw
a dark-colored car pulled face first into the driveway of
Gwinnco, a police car behind it with its blue lights on.
          And then at 9:45, give or take five minutes, a
witness saw, as they crested the hill south of the
muffler shop, they saw someone in the driveway, a dark-
colored car and a police car with its blue lights on.
And as any other person, they started to slow down. They
thought they might be speeding. They thought they might
get a ticket,
          And as they went by the muffler shop, they saw a
dark-colored car, a large white male wearing a rain
slicker, a police hat with a rain cover and carrying a
flashlight, standing beside the dark-colored car. Behind

that dark-colored car was a police car where the blue
lights had been on. As they crested the hill, the blue
lights were then off. As they passed, they observed what
I've just described.
          And as they went on past, proceeding down towards
the intersection of Georgia 20, as the road four-lanes,
which is about here, a car came up behind the two men,
moving rapidly, and pulled up beside them as soon as the
car as soon as the road four-lanes. The passenger in
the car, who you will hear testify, looked over and
realized it was a Gwinnett County police car, and he
presumed that it was the same car that he had just
passed. He looked at that car, the car remained beside
them all the way down Peachtree Industrial Boulevard, a
distance that you'll see from here [indicating) to the
Gwinnco is seven-tenths of a mile. And from this
intersection here [indicating) to where the police car
eventually turned off is eight-tenths of a mile from the
muffler shop. And the car - the police car remained
beside the witnesses' car the entire time,
          The passenger looked over to see the person
driving the car. He looked at him the entire time. He
was paying attention. And in the light of the street
lights and in the light of the dome lights of the car, or
the dashboard lights, he saw a person that he's

identified as the defendant, Michael Chapel.
          And on another front, the first thing that the
police began to do was to try and reconstruct the events
of the last night of Emogene Thompson's life, The first
thing they did was contact her son. She lived on Craig
Drive which is off of Hillcrest here with her son,
Michael, Michael told them that she had eaten dinner
with him the night before, and the last time that he saw
her was about 8=30,
          But he told them one other thing, that she had had
a theft on April 3 and she had reported it to the
Gwinnett County police department, And she'd had a theft
of approximately $7,000. And since that theft, she had
been carrying the balance of her money with her, never
letting it leave her side. So all of a sudden, there was
a connection, and they began to look for who was
connected to the victim,
          Who was connected to Emogene Thompson? And it was
discovered that the defendant on April 3 had responded to
a burglary call at Emogene Thompson's house; that he had
gone to her house; that he had taken the report of the
burglary and the theft of the $7,000; that he had seen
the remainder of the money which was approximately
$7,000, and had counted it out with the victim. And
during that time, he said that it appeared to him that

her son had taken the money,
          The key there is he never filed an incident
report. He never logged it on his daily activity sheet
that he'd ever been in contact with Emogene Thompson. It
wasn't until her body was discovered, and he was told of
the fact, that he came forward
          The police also discovered that at least one call
was made from the victim to the defendant at the
northside precinct, a call that he supposedly returned or
was instructed to return
          Now, in the course of this, given the fact that
that theft was the motivation for the killing or robbery
was the motivation for the killing, the police began to
look into the finances of Emogene Thompson.
          What they discovered was that due to the death of
her boyfriend, she'd received an insurance settlement of
$25,000, that she received some of it in November of
1992. And in March of 1993, she received an additional
$10,000. They also showed that on March 2, 1993, Emogene
Thompson received almost $10,000 ~ excuse me, $6,300 in
cash from the People's Bank of Buford, that cash being in
predominantly $100 bills. They also discovered that on
March 12, Emogene Thompson made a split deposit of her
last insurance check and received almost $10,000 in cash,
again, most of it in $100 bills. So the story of the

cash is true. The police found and accounted for the
money that was stolen.
          They began to look at the defendant's finances.
They discovered that in January of 1993, he had asked for
and gotten a loan from a friend of approximately $1,500
that had never been repaid, They discovered that he had
received in April of 1993 a notice of what's called a
zero-base audit, which would have allowed -- could have
disallowed approximately $4,000 in deductions that he had
made on his 1992 taxes, And also discovered that he had
had to he had failed to make the payments on his
truck, and he had returned it rather than having it
repossessed; and, basically, what they discovered was the
defendant was in financial straits at the time of the
homic ide .
          The key, then, began into the investigation of
what was his financial status after the murder. And the
state will present evidence that in the week after the
murder, in the week of April 16th through the 23rd, the
defendant made purchases and deposits into various bank
accounts that account for $2,500 in currency for which
there is no legitimate source. The state will show that
he paid $600 for T-shirts for the gym that he owned and
paid for them with six $100 bills.
           The state will show that on the morning of

April 16, 1993, while Emogene Thompson"s body was being
removed and transported to the morgue and her car was
being processed, he was having his car washed here in
Lawrenceville and having it detailed, and he paid for it
with a $100 bill, for a $20 car wash.
          The state will also show that in a briefcase that
was removed from the defendant's car, in a ledger book,
there were four brand new crisp $100 bills tucked behind
the notebook. And the state will show that the serial
numbers on those bills indicated that they were delivered
to the People's Bank and Trust from the Federal Reserve
on March 11, the day before Emogene Thompson withdrew
$10,000 in cash.
          With this evidence in hand, the defendant was then
brought into Gwinnett County police headquarters, and he
was interviewed, and you'll see that interview, You'll
see the videotape. And what do you think the defendant
said? 'I didn't do it.'
          But I want you to listen to the tape, because in
the denials I want you to watch for statements like, 'If
I thought I needed an alibi, I would have gotten one,'
Statements like, 'If I had as much evidence as you guys
have, I'd think I was guilty, too.' Statements like,
'I'm really insulted that you think I could be that
sloppy as to shoot someone on the side of the road.' And

watch his demeanor. Watch the demeanor of a man who is
accused of murdering and robbing a woman at night while
on duty as a police officer.
          After his arrest, physical evidence was then
gathered by the Gwinnett County police department. The
tire had already been removed from the vehicle. It had
been determined that it was punctured by a single-edge
sharp instrument, which is scientific talk for a knife.
It was determined that two bullets that were recovered
from Emogene Thompson's car were fired from either an RG
or Charter Arms .38 or .357.
          A rain jacket which was recovered from a locker at
the northside precinct, to which the defendant had sole
access, was discovered to have high velocity blood
spatter of human origin. You will hear that the source
or one of the only sources of high velocity blood spatter
is to be standing within 18 inches of someone when a
bullet impacts their body.
          And finally, the state recovered the seat of the
defendant's patrol car. Right before the patrol car was
going to be released back into service, and the defendant
was already in custody, it was decided, based on a number
of factors, to run one more test on the car, And the
police here ran what's called a Luminol test.
           Luminol is a substance that's sprayed on surfaces

and then a fluorescent light is used, and in the presence
of blood, it will luminance or shine. And when the
Luminol process was applied to the seat on the armrest
and the edge of the passenger's seat, it luminesced in
the presence of blood.
          The seat was removed and sent to the crime lab,
The crime lab determined that the stain on the seat was
of human origin. And then a swatch was cut out and it
was run through DNA forensic testing.
         Now, y'all indicated when we selected you as a
jury that you had some familiarity with DNA. But let me
take a moment to explain what the testing is,
          In DNA testing, unknown body substances are
compared to known body substances. The first step in the
process is that through the use, basically, of a
centrifuge, the DNA is removed from in this case the
blood, And the DNA material is in fact removed
mechanically. The DNA is then examined to determine
whether or not there is enough DNA in the sample to make
comparisons.
          You'll learn that DNA is essentially the
cornerstone of lifer It is a cellular matrix consisting
basically of four parts which are joined like the links
of a puzzle and can only join one way. Each of us are
different because they join in different sequences. And

that's what makes me and you. And it is this
sequence that is then tested.
          It's tested first by once the DNA material is
removed, it's cut chemically through the use of an enzyme
called a restriction enzyme. And what that does is take
the strands of DNA and separate it along certain points
into strands of varying lengths. Those lengths are then
placed in a gel, and through a process called
electrophoresis, they are chemically and electrically
excited and then moved through the gel for a certain
distance depending on their length. Then they are locked
in place through a process called Southern bonding, which
is the use of a nylon membrane that locks the question
sample into place. Then once the question sample has
been locked onto the membrane, it's compared against what
are called probes.
          Probes are nothing more or less than genetic
yardsticks. They measure the length of the genetic
material that's been cut previously. As each probe is
put against the question material and the known material,
comparisons are made. The more probes that are compared,
the narrower the chances become of what's called a random
match. And these terms will all be explained to you.
          In this case, six probes were compared to both the
blood of Michael Chapel and the blood of Emogene

Thompson, six yardsticks against the DNA material that
was found on the seat. The results of those tests were
that each of the six probes matched the blood of Emogene
Thompson.
          Once the match is made or determined by trained
technicians who are experienced in this matter, it's
reviewed by a computer. And the computer makes a second
comparison under the control of the technicians, The
control of the -- the computer in this case confirmed the
results of the technicians. And again, the six-probe
match was found from the seat of Michael Chapel's patrol
car to the blood of Emogene Thompson,
          Once the examination is made, there is what's
called a population frequency estimate done, which is
basically done by multiplying the likelihood of the
occurrence of each probe, because the probes, they don't
measure hair color or eye color or anything else. They
are just places on the DNA, and they occur with certain
frequency in populations. And when you take all the six
probes and you multiply the frequency of the occurrence
of each probe, you end up in this case with scientific
conclusion that the likelihood that the blood on the seat
is not Emogene Thompson is one in excess of ten billion,
which is more than twice the population of the planet.
In fact, the numbers that you will hear is that the

chance that it is not Emogene's blood is in excess of one
in forty billion.
          Now, in this case, the murder weapon has never
been recovered, but the state will present evidence that
Michael Chapel owned a Charter Arms .38. He was seen in
possession of it. In this case, Emogene Thompson's purse
has never been recovered, but the state will present
evidence that on the night of the murder she was in
possession of $7,000.
          And when this case is concluded, you will see that
the strands of evidence that the defendant wasn't able to
dispose of, couldn't dispose of, bind him inextricably to
Emogene Thompson as if they were chained together. And
it is that chain which will lead you to the verdict that
speaks the truth.
          The verdict that speaks the truth in this case is
that Michael Thompson -- or, excuse me, Michael Chapel is
guilty of malice murder, felony murder, armed robbery,
and possession of a firearm during the commission of a
felony. And when the case is ended, I will ask you to
return that verdict that speaks the truth which you have
sworn to do. Thank you.