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[Watch previous FOX 8 I-Team coverage in the player above.]
CLEVELAND (WJW) — The FOX 8 I-Team has found Cuyahoga County prosecutors don’t want evidence re-tested in the case of the murder of Aliza Sherman.
Last week, attorneys for Gregory Moore asked the judge to allow the defense to do more testing on DNA evidence found on Sherman’s watch.
The watch was found at the scene where Sherman was stabbed to death downtown back in 2013. Gregory Moore was just indicted in May.
But prosecutors filed a motion in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Thursday, saying re-testing is not necessary.
“The State of Ohio objects to the proposed court order for reasons of fact Moore fails to mention in his motion and for reasons of logic with regard to re-testing an item that has already been tested,” states the motion filed by Assistant Prosecutor Kevin Filiatraut:
First, it is important to note that Moore misstates the location of the DNA and its relevance. An individual who reads Moore’s motion would think that the watch was found on and collected from Aliza Sherman’s wrist or arm by the Cleveland Police Department. However, when police arrived on scene, the watch (marker #5) was located among several of Aliza Sherman’s personal items that were all on the ground near the location of her attack and a pool of her blood. It is unknown whether she was wearing the watch during the attack, whether the watch came off of her during the attack or as a result of her running from her assailant prior to being physically attacked, whether the watch was removed from her by EMS while they rendered aid, or, most importantly, regardless of how it arrived on the ground whether (1) it was ever touched by the assailant and (2) in a manner that could have transferred any of the assailant’s DNA to it. The fact that the watch was on the ground laying face up, as can be seen in the crime scene photograph taken at the time it was collected, and that the unknown DNA was located on the underside of the watch, means that the unknown DNA could have been transferred to the watch from the ground itself, which could have had DNA from any number of person’s unrelated to the crime on it.
Moore’s attorney, Jon Paul Rion, said there is no DNA from the crime scene that links Moore to the crime. He said DNA found on the watch comes back to a third party and argues the DNA points toward someone else as the killer.
Prosecutors stressed the DNA has already been tested and they don’t believe a defense laboratory will obtain any different results.
It is not known when the judge may rule on the issue.
Moore, who is free on a $2 million bond, is due back in court next week for a pretrial.
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Peggy Gallek
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