Crime scene analysts testify
Witnesses asked why some evidence was not processed
Grant Amato sat in a Seminole County courtroom teary-eyed Wednesday morning as he looked at close-up images of his dead brother.
Prosecutors are still calling witnesses in the triple-murder trial of Amato, 30, who faces the death penalty in the killings of his parents, Margaret and Chad Amato, and brother, Cody Amato, in the family’s rural Seminole County home in January.
The first witness to take the stand Wednesday was Seminole sheriff’s Crime Scene Analyst Arthur Rubart, who described pictures he took in the family’s home on Jan. 25, the morning the bodies were discovered.
Next to Cody Amato’s body were a backpack and gun, Rubart said. Inside the backpack was a card holder with Cody Amato’s driver’s license, AAA card, and rewards cards from TopGolf and DriveShack.
But there were no credit or debit cards, or any other form of currency near Cody’s body, Rubart testified. Grant Amato told detectives his brother gave him his cards the last time the two saw each other. Authorities said Amato used one of his brother’s cards after the killings to send $600 to Silvie, the Bulgarian webcam model with whom Amato had been obsessed.
During his opening statement Tuesday, prosecutor Stewart Stone said the family was killed because they made Amato cut off his relationship with Silvie. Stone said Amato staged the scene to make it look like his brother Cody committed a murder-suicide.
But Amato’s defense team said there was no real motive for Amato to have killed his family. His lawyer, Jared Shapiro, reminded the jury they can’t convict Amato because of a lack of other suspects.
Testimony began Tuesday morning with Chris Sisco, Cody Amato’s coworker at Orlando Regional Medical Center who
alerted authorities after Cody didn’t show up to work Jan. 25; Deputy Todd Moderson, who went into the home and found the bodies; and Rubart.
Cody Amato always kept his phone on him, Sisco testified Tuesday. On Wednesday, Rubart said he found a phone charger and Apple Air Buds among Cody’s belongings — but no cellphone.
Rubart described finding several containers with marijuana in the home: one in Margaret’s car and other containers in the master bathroom. A hydroponic growing system was also found in a cabinet in the bathroom, but it didn’t appear to be actively cultivating marijuana, Rubart said. He said he believed the marijuana was for personal use because he didn’t see any scales, baggies or other paraphernalia that would indicate drug sales.
Jeff Dowdy, another lawyer on Amato’s team, grilled Rubart about his processing of the crime scene. Dowdy asked Rubart whether he had processed a garage door keypad, phones, door handles and other items for fingerprints.
Rubart said he didn’t: “The main suspect that we felt in the case lived at the home, so his fingerprints on that surface would not be of evidentiary value.”
Dowdy went on to question Rubart about a safe found in Chad and Margaret Amato’s bedroom. He said he also didn’t process that safe for forensic evidence.
“Wouldn’t it be important to process this?” Dowdy asked, referring to the safe. “Possible,” Rubart replied. “But it wasn’t done?” asked Dowdy.
“It wasn’t done,” the analyst responded.
Dowdy asked another analyst, Christine Snyder, many of the same questions about why certain items of evidence weren’t processed. Snyder admitted the analysts didn’t realize the significance of some evidence, including a safe in the master bedroom and Chad Amato’s cell phone.
Snyder also described angles and trajectories of the bullets that killed the family.
Snyder said when she first saw Chad Amato’s body, she asked investigators whether it had been moved. Chad was shot twice in the head, she said. The first shot likely caused him to fall on the kitchen floor, the bullet traveling through Chad’s head, nicking a cabinet and embedding into the wall.
But Snyder said that shot didn’t immediately kill him. Blood spatter and smears indicate Chad crawled on the kitchen floor, moving to the other side of the center island. He was shot again — the bullet went through the back of his head, then ricocheted off the kitchen floor and into the bottom of the island.
The autopsy indicated Chad Amato was face-down when he was shot the second time, Snyder said. But responding deputies found him face-up, about three feet away from the bullet impression in the tile floor.
Another unusual detail Snyder cited about Chad Amato’s body was the handgun and holster attached to his right hip.
Chad Amato’s pants and shirt were saturated with blood. But the holster had no blood on it. It was also positioned backwards on his hip, in a way that somebody who was right-handed, like Chad, wouldn’t have worn had it.
Synder said that “just doesn’t make any sense.”
There was also a speck of blood on the coin pocket under the holster on Chad Amato’s jeans, indicating he wasn’t armed when he was shot, Snyder testified.
Cody Amato’s body also appeared to have been moved, Synder said. There was a large pool of blood near his feet, but only a small amount under his head, where he was fatally wounded.
“Did all of these observations that you made lead you to believe Cody Amato had been moved?” asked prosecutor Monica Adkins.
“Yes,” Snyder responded.