EVERETT — Lawyers on Tuesday made it clear that forensic evidence will come under close scrutiny during the murder trial of a handyman accused of killing Angela Pettifer last year in her Monroe apartment.
Prosecutors allege that Michael Benjamin, a convicted sex offender who lived in same bu
ilding as Pettifer, clobbered her in the head with a bottle of hot sauce and strangled her. Pettifer’s body was discovered Aug. 15, 2010, in her bedroom. Her pants had been removed and her shirt and bra had been pulled up, exposing her chest.
Witnesses who helped an extremely intoxicated Pettifer to her apartment told police that Benjamin also walked the Monroe woman to her third-floor apartment the night before her body was found. Another witness reported seeing a sweaty Benjamin leaving the third floor around the same time Pettifer’s neighbors heard a loud thump come from the slain woman’s apartment.
Prosecutors allege that investigators recovered genetic evidence on Pettifer’s body that links Benjamin to the crime.
“Angela Pettifer’s weakness — alcohol — brought her to his radar and when that occurred he strangled her in her bedroom and left her mostly naked in her bed,” Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Craig Matheson said Tuesday during opening statements.
Benjamin, 46, is charged with second-degree murder in Snohomish County Superior Court.
Investigators didn’t find any obvious signs that Pettifer, 36, was sexually assaulted, court papers said. Still, prosecutors allege there was a sexual component to the crime and that the killer staged Pettifer’s body.
Jurors are not expected to be told that Benjamin is a Level 1 sex offender. He was convicted in 2006 of three counts of communicating with a minor for immoral purposes.
Matheson told jurors that Benjamin’s DNA was found on Pettifer’s breast, and there is “no innocent explanation.” Pettifer, who’d lived in the building for about a month before her death, didn’t have a relationship with the defendant, Matheson said.
Pettifer had “fatally bad luck. This was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong state of mind when the wrong guy was there,” Matheson said.
Defense attorney Natalie Tarantino argued that Benjamin is being accused of murder because he uses the most popular hot sauce in the country.
Prosecutors allege that the hot sauce they found soaking Pettifer’s hair and clothes was the same kind they found in Benjamin’s refrigerator. Grocery store records showed that Benjamin bought a bottle of Frank’s Hot Sauce about once a month.
Tarantino called the hot sauce a “false clue” that distracted police during their investigation.
The public defender also argued that the genetic evidence recovered on Pettifer’s body isn’t a conclusive match to her client. She told jurors that there was more conclusive results linking Pettifer’s boyfriend and father to the crime scene, including the genetic samples taken from under Pettifer’s broken fingernails. Tarantino also said that investigators haven’t identified the people whose DNA and fingerprints were recovered from Pettifer’s purse and a bottle of cleaning solution.
“It’s just not possible to strangle a woman who is nearly naked and not leave a bucket full of DNA evidence,” Tarantino said.
The defense attorney argued that the prosecutor’s case against Benjamin is not a slam dunk.
“This case is a real mystery that won’t be solved by the end of this trial,” Tarantino said.
She told jurors in the end they won’t know who killed Pettifer.
“You will know that Michael Benjamin didn’t do it,” Tarantino said.
The trial is expected to continue into next week.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.
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