One of the most compelling and confusing pieces of evidence in the trial was the audio recording of the 911 call placed by Jeanine as the crime was happening. We heard testimony from both Jeanine and the Dispatcher regarding the recording, but neither could provide much credible context.
For the 911 Dispatcher it was clearly very difficult for him to have a good recollection of one of many calls he had received two years ago. Even at the time of the call he was quite confused. He can be heard on the recording advising officers that he believes a child is being abducted.
Jeanine simply appeared to be lying when she talked about what she heard on the tape.
The tape was mostly screaming. There is static, loud noises and mayhem. At times male voices were audible, but it was very hard to tell what was being said.
For the prosecution this jumbled mess of audio was important. With the defendants not testifying, and the only other two witnesses having clearly concocted an alternate narrative with counselor Murphy, the 911 call was the only piece of credible truth from the time of the crime.
To make the call more decipherable the prosecution turned to Maria Dery, a audio engineer for the Harvard Library and owner of Tamar Mastering. The first step in the testimony of an expert witness is to establish their expertise. For Maria, this meant going through her long and lustrous career producing music and restoring audio.
Maria wore the mark of a nerd. A true geek, addicted to doing good technical work for the sake of doing it right. Her suit was slightly disheveled and her body and face told the story of a women who spent many long hours in front of computers.
A point of pride during her questioning came when she described a recent forensic competition she had entered. (Who knew there was such a thing?) The competition was apparently fierce and she had placed second, working alone, against a team of four Russians. She told the story with a glow. The jury stifled laughter.
What she had produced was pretty amazing though. Maria had worked for hours and hours on the 911 call stripping away the static noise and turning down the screaming to let the background shine through.
For the first time the jury could start to hear what had really happened. Most importantly, it was clear that Chris had been in the kitchen trying to stop the fight and that Jeanine had run out (with the phone) as the confrontation devolved into violence.
Why was this so important to me?
It meant that Jeanine had been lying the day of the crime when she talked to police. On the day of the killing she had said that her boys had beat up Shadide, but the truth was she say almost nothing.
It also meant that even though Chris was speaking a lot of bullshit, he was telling the truth about being in the kitchen and intervening.
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