Missoula, Montana: The coroner testifying at the trial of Montana woman Jordan Graham, has said that her new husband, Cody Johnson, was not wearing his wedding ring when his body was found. Johnson, who federal prosecutors allege was pushed off of a cliff by his wife, had an 8-inch fracture to his forehead.
Flathead County deputy coroner Richard Sine testified Wednesday in Jordan Graham's trial that Cody Johnson also had lacerations on his legs days after he was reported missing in July. Sine, who has 43 years experience as a police officer and has served as the coroner for Flathead County since April 2012, gave his account of where he found articles of clothing belonging to Cody Johnson, as well as a cloth that has been in question.
He also described how he climbed down with a group of other agents, to recover Cody Johnson's body, in Glacier National Park. He said that the first sign of Johnson that he came upon was a shoe downstream of the body about 100 to 150 yards. The next thing he saw was a black cloth near a waterfall, about “one-third of the way to the body.” In a feeder drainage above where Johnson’s body was found, Sine said he found Johnson’s other shoe as well as one sock that was down slope from the second shoe. Photographs of each item in the location that they were found were shown as evidence exhibits.
Johnson’s body was lifted from the water in a yellow, mesh body bag up to higher ground where it was put into a standard, black body bag. The imagery of this sequence of events was chronicled through photographs shown as exhibits to those in the courtroom.
During cross examination for the defense, Mike Donahue returned to the topic of the cloth, asking Sine who he gave it to, who photographed it and who bagged it.
“When I located the cloth I was not in immediate vicinity to anyone else,” Sine said. “I did alert someone else of it being there.”
Sine went on to say that he photographed the cloth in the original place he saw it at before it was disturbed. However, it was not involved with the reservation of any evidence besides that which was immediately on the body.
Donahue concluded his cross examination by asking Sine about the weather conditions on the day that the body was recovered. Sine said that it was sunny and warm, and with regard to wind, he doesn’t recall there being any, but if there was he said it would have been “minimal in that canyon.”
In redirect, Sine was asked just one question. Did he find any car keys on Johnson when he was searching the body? The answer, “no.”
The trial continues.
Sources:
Newstalk KGVO
The Huffington Post
True Crime Blog
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