MONROE — As murder weapons go, it is hard to imagine a more unlikely object: a 23-ounce bottle of Frank’s Red Hot hot sauce.
Investigators say Angela Pettifer’s killer beat her with it on the head. The 36-year-old woman, already wobbly from a night of heavy drinking, was showered with broken glass. The attacker then choked her to death. Her partially clothed body was found in the bedroom of her Monroe apartment.
That was Aug. 15, 2010.
On Tuesday, lawyers sparred for hours in a Snohomish County courtroom over who should be held responsible.
Michael Noel Benjamin, a handyman who lived in Pettifer’s apartment building, had the means, the motive and the opportunity to murder, deputy prosecutor Craig Matheson told a Superior Court jury. More important, the prosecutor said, tests indicate that DNA consistent with Benjamin’s genetic profile was found on Pettifer’s left breast. They weren’t a couple, and “the only explanation for that is homicidal,” he said.
Or, that is just more proof that detectives have been rushing to view information in a way that supports their theory regardless of the facts, Benjamin’s attorney, public defender Natalie Tarantino, said.
She urged jurors to exercise “healthy skepticism of government” in reviewing the case against her client.
Genetic tests on trace amounts of DNA found on Pettifer’s breast found Benjamin could not be excluded as a possible source — but neither could 1 in 1,300 men in the U.S. population, jurors were told. Moreover, DNA from other men was found on Pettifer’s clothing and under her fingernails, including genetic material linked to the woman’s boyfriend and her father, Tarantino noted.
She also scoffed at the emphasis prosecutors have placed on Benjamin’s fondness for hot sauce. It is true that a 23-ounce bottle of the same brand was found in his apartment, and his grocery bills show him restocking his supply about once a month.
“The hot sauce connection is baloney,” Tarantino said. She called the case against her client “a recipe for wrongful conviction.”
Benjamin, 46, is charged with second-degree murder. Jurors have listened to about a week of testimony. Closing arguments in the case took all afternoon Tuesday. Jury deliberations were expected to begin in earnest Wednesday.
Jurors were told Pettifer spent her final night binge drinking with her father. The autopsy later determined her blood-alcohol level was high enough for her to be declared drunk three times over.
She was being helped home by two women who had found her drunk in the street when Benjamin offered to help get her to her third-floor apartment.
The women said Pettifer went inside and they heard the door latch.
Another witness later reported seeing a sweat-soaked Benjamin leaving the third floor, Matheson said. That happened after Pettifer’s neighbors had heard a loud thump that came from the slain woman’s apartment.
Investigators determined Pettifer had been attacked by somebody who bashed her with the hot sauce bottle, then strangled her. They found no obvious signs of sexual assault, but her killer had removed most of her clothes.
Benjamin is a registered sex offender and was convicted in 2006 of three counts of communicating with a minor for immoral purposes — history that wasn’t shared with jurors.
Tarantino told the panel that police ignored potential leads and focused on Benjamin in spite of evidence pointing elsewhere.
She reminded jurors that tests found none of Benjamin’s DNA under Pettifer’s broken fingernails, but did turn up material consistent with both her boyfriend and father. Investigators also didn’t identify people whose DNA and fingerprints were recovered from Pettifer’s purse. It was found on a ledge outside her apartment window, spattered with hot sauce.
“The state is trying to connect dots here that do not connect,” she said.
Scott North: 425-339-3431, north@heraldnet.com
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