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Victim's Girlfriend, Coroner Become Focus of Clark Defense

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The prosecution’s image of a happy couple, forever torn apart by the unjustified actions of an overzealous federal agent, was picked apart Wednesday by defense attorney Mark Schamel, who used about four hours of cross-examination time trying to show how a pattern of alcoholism and domestic violence ultimately led to the Sept. 7, 2008 shooting death of Marcus Sukow.
Schamel is part of the team defending Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent William Clark, who’s currently facing second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter and two counts of related weapons charges in connection with Sukow’s death.
During opening arguments Monday, the defense claimed that Clark was sucked into a violent domestic dispute between Sukow and his girlfriend, Marguerite "Margie" Duncan, and opened fire only after being threatened by Sukow with a heavy-duty flashlight that Sukow allegedly also used to beat in Duncan’s car.
Clark’s team had repeatedly asserted that the September 2008 incident at Mahogany Estates wasn’t the couple’s first violent tiff, but rather the last in a series of recurring events that Schamel tried to string together Wednesday using various emails between Duncan and her friends or relatives.
In particular, Schamel referenced an encounter in June 2008 where an angry Sukow showed up at a restaurant where Duncan was eating with some friends — including her daughter — and threw a glass of water "over the group." While on the stand, Duncan said Sukow was incensed over an email her daughter had written about him, but did not specifically target her during the outburst and apologized afterward for his behavior.
Turning back to the day of the shooting, Schamel pointed out that Sukow had a blood alcohol level of .29 percent (more than three times the legal limit) while arguing outside with Duncan and also behaved aggressively toward both Clark and attorney Henry Carr, another neighbor who witnessed at least part of the melee. Along with hitting Carr with a few racial slurs, Sukow also told Clark — who asked the couple in the middle of the argument whether they were OK — that he would give him a "country-ass whooping" if he didn’t mind his own business.
Duncan admitted that she got into Clark’s car around the same time that Sukow began to go after Carr, but said that it was not because, in the words of Schamel, her "boyfriend was drunk and threatening" her.
Whatever the situation, Duncan instead maintained that Sukow was never violent toward her, and was no different on the day of his death. He was angry and yelled at her after she chose to end a conversation they were having about marriage, but never made a move to attack, Duncan testified.
And instead of hitting the car with the heavy-duty flashlight as the defense has alleged, Sukow actually caused the damage photographed on the hood of Duncan’s car with a long-handled black umbrella, she added while on the stand Wednesday.
On Tuesday, former Police Department crime scene tech Chavonne Sasso testified that she had photographed damage seen on the hood of Duncan’s car, along with the side mirror and both passenger and drivers’ side doors. Duncan has said all the damage was caused in previous accidents, including one that happened the night before, when an intoxicated Sukow was driving the couple back home from dinner.
Duncan said she had not told investigators about the umbrella until meeting with government attorneys in June of this year. When asked why not, Duncan said, "No one ever asked me about it." After the incident, the umbrella stayed under the car while Duncan stayed with friends and was removed when she returned to her condo "several days later," Duncan testified.
Defense attorneys have said that Duncan’s story has changed several times since the shooting, and because of that, Clark’s camp has subpoenaed a number of high-profile witnesses — among them Gov. John deJongh Jr., Attorney General Vincent Frazer and former Police Commissioner James McCall — to back up some of the statements they say Duncan has recanted.
Schamel specifically referenced a police statement he said was allegedly given by Duncan at the scene on the day of the incident, and read out loud sections where she talked about being involved in a domestic dispute in which Sukow took a long, black flashlight and "banged on the mirror" of her car, "causing it to break." Schamel asked whether Duncan remembered also telling police that Clark intervened as Sukow became more aggressive, and shot Sukow after he began "banging on Clark’s vehicle violently" with the flashlight.
Duncan said she only gave the police a one-sentence statement at the scene and later "made corrections" by sending a letter to Police in an attempt to disavow what had "incorrectly" been attributed to her. Duncan said she sent a similar letter about a statement she allegedly made to McCall about the shooting being justified.
On the stand Wednesday, Duncan said she did have a conversation with McCall, but only after the shooting because she was concerned, upon learning that Clark had moved back into their Mahogany Run condo complex, that he was going to kill her next.
"Why not shoot me and get rid of the witness?" she asked.
Duncan also testified that while she did talk about the shooting with her friends, it was mainly in "generalities" and in reference to what was printed in the local newspapers.
"And that was because, would it be fair to say, that you’ve had some problems with your memory in relation to this case?" Schamel asked.
"With some of the points, not all of them, yes," Duncan responded, adding later that she was given a printed list of prep questions by the government attorneys before the trial, which she was allowed to take home and answer.
The rest of the day was devoted to video testimony from V.I. Medical Examiner Dr. Francisco Landron, who attorneys have said is not able to appear during trial because he’s off island for surgery. Speaking with attorneys in a deposition on tape, Landron said he had determined that Sukow’s cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds — specifically five shots to the upper chest, abdomen and lower back.
Classification of the fifth wound as a shot to the "back" was repeatedly objected to on tape by defense attorneys.
Landron described the shots as "long range," which means, according to his testimony, that they could have been fired as close up as 18 inches away or as far back as five feet. He explained that the only way to determine the exact range would be to test fire the gun and make note of where the powder or residue disappeared.
Duncan has testified that Sukow was standing five feet away from Clark when he fired, but had his hands at his side and was about to back away when the bullets were released.
In this case, Landron said there was no gunpowder tattooing or residue on the wounds, and said that he could conclude, based on his findings and without any information at all about the incident, that Sukow’s death was a homicide.
Schamel pointed out on tape that Landron had not documented in his autopsy report certain injuries that Landron later acknowledged could be consistent with his hitting Duncan’s car with his hands. Landron added, however, that the injuries on the back of Sukow’s hands could also be attributable to "postmortem lividity," or bruising on the skin of a corpse that begins to form after death.
In any case, Landron said that the injuries to Sukow’s feet and hands weren’t serious enough to warrant x-rays or further examination and that the bruises on his back were caused by the pooling of blood under the bullets that had not exited Sukow’s body.
Sukow’s toxicology report was referenced on tape, but the audio was lowered so that questions and objections posed by the attorneys were not heard by the jury or spectators in the courtroom. Senior sitting Judge Edgar D. Ross, who is presiding over the trial, explained later that those sections contain information that would not ordinarily be aired in open court, and said the situation is no different in a video deposition.
The trial picks up again 9 a.m. Thursday with testimony from Carr.

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