Jury Duty - Part II, The Evidence

This is a continuation of my first post on my recent jury duty experience. So people ask, how did you know he did it? So here is what I felt was the most convicting evidence.

For every expert witness confirming their belief in something, there was another expert disputing it. I felt sorry for even the most educated and convinced witness because the opposing counsel could be quite ruthless in their cross-examination.

The blood evidence for myself was key. The prosecution said that there was no way Nancy could have been alive to enter the distress code into the alarm at 5:52a. The said the evidence in this was the blood. The first shot produced a wound that did not produce a lot of blood. There was an area on her head that was coagulated, which takes some time to occur. This matched a spot on the floor where they believed her head had first fallen. When it was noticed whe was still alive (although unconscious), her head was moved from the initial position, this was after 12-20 minutes from the first shot being fired. She was then shot again in the nasal cavity at very closse range. This second shot produced a very large pool of blood. When the police arrived to the house at about 6:20a there was already a large amount of serum separation in the pool of blood. Something that takes time, a considerable amount of time for the amount of separation that was present in this pool.

The defense brought in another "expert" that came up with another story of how things could have happened but it didn't make sense and the blood did not correlate with their story. The blood evidence and timeline that was presented by the defense was the biggest factor in confirming guilt.

Guns. This family owned tons of guns and Mr. Floren frequented the shooting range. There were guns all over this house, in both vehicles and in dresser drawers. There were guns under each side of the master bed. Nancy's gun was found next to her right hand, as if she had confronted a burglar in the home. The holster her gun was held in was buttoned and placed neatly back under her bed. Suspicious of someone to be so neat when frantically awoken and scared enough to grab her gun to go confront an attacker.

The murder weapon was thought to have been a .22 caliber. Mr. Floren did own guns, lots of them. Over the course of the years I think he bought and sold something like 50. Only one was unaccounted for & it was a .22 caliber gun.

Habits. These people were very safety minded people. They always did a perimeter check before bed, always kept the alarm armed and always locked their doors. People that had known them, their maid and family that had stayed with them and dog sat for them attested to this. Tracy claimed he had quit locking the garage to mudroom door because the jingling of the key would startle Nancy upstairs if she was sleeping. This sounded very suspicious to me considering she would hear the car garage door would be much louder then that and key her into Tracy coming home.

He also said that he would leave the alarm unactivated when he left her alone in the early mornings to go to meetings, again this did not seem right. He also said the garage door to the side yard "might have been unlocked". For a family that seemed very concerned with locking doors this seemed strange. There was a very neat square scored on the garage door glass but not pushed in. It was presented by the defense as a burglar who after scoring reached down and realized the door was unlocked in the first place, suspicious????

Internet History. Over a handful of months before the murder, Tracy had looked at plenty of dating and matchmaking sites including the Craigslist personals. He was looking for a new partner, and was dating someone at the time of his arrest in March. Even over their vacation in Sequim he was looking at Chinese mail order bride sites. Suspicious of someone that was having what he called some of the best weeks of his life with Nancy.

There was a lot of talk about plant pieces found in Tracy Floren's clothes. Many pieces matched what was in the retention field (and no where else) which was on the other side of the fence that was climbed in an escape. Human and dog trackers confirmed the route of escape and took many pictures to show it. Pictures from the day of the crime showed no mowing or herbicide activity along the fence line of the home. Photo's from 2 weeks later showed that the area along the fence was weedwacked and sprayed. The defense said that this occured the weekend the family had returned home in the middle of their trip to Sequim, and that Tracy might have had those same pants on the day of the murder. The prosecution said no way. They said this happened days after the murder (Tracy had not been arrested until 6 months later) when he was trying to explain or cover up evidence.

Overall the crime was just too neat. The scored glass was a very neat square, the house was not ransacked and not even a drawer had appeared to have been opened. There were lots of valuables in the office very close to the murder and nothing was touched. The gun holster being so neatly placed back under the bed. Good friends swore Nancy would never confront an attacker, she would hide.

The man that committed this crime was very smart. He did a lot of things to ensure he would not get caught and it was a very well planned crime. I am so thankful that nature played many a roles in confirming his guilt. It would have been a shame if he got a way with such a heinous act of cold blooded murder.

Rest in Peace Nancy Floren, justice was served.