Any one of the three bullets to the back of Rachel Burkheimer’s head would have killed her within seconds or minutes, the Snohomish County medical examiner testified Friday.
Three other wounds, two to her upper back and one to her side, were serious and would have needed quick medical attention, Dr. Norman Thiersch told a Superior Court jury.
Burkheimer, 18, of Marysville was found face down in a grave with her arms folded in front of her in September 2002.
The man accused of pulling the trigger sat in the courtroom, turning down an opportunity to view photographs Thiersch took of the injuries to Burkheimer.
The jury sat quietly watching more than a dozen photos that showed the wounds.
Witnesses have identified defendant John Phillip Anderson, 22, of Everett as the one who shot the woman after ordering a grave to be dug. Anderson was Burkheimer’s ex-boyfriend.
Prosecutors allege that Anderson was one of the top members of a gang of thieves and drug dealers who became suspicious that Burkheimer was giving information about them to rivals. They also allege that Anderson was jealous when she started dating another man.
Anderson is charged with aggravated first-degree murder, which carries a term of life in prison if he is convicted.
His trial enters its fourth week on Monday, and lawyers expect the jury to begin deliberations after a few more days of testimony and argument.
Deputy prosecutors Michael Downes and Julie Mohr went through some of the nuts and bolts of their case Friday. Besides the medical examiner, jurors heard from a Washington State Patrol crime lab forensic scientist, who linked a pistol found in a pond in Lynnwood to Burkheimer’s killing.
Bullets and bullet fragments found in her body and in the dirt at her grave site near Gold Bar came from the same gun, lab scientist Richard Wyant testified. Others testified that the 9mm pistol was the gun used by Anderson in the killing, and he ordered the others to get rid of it.
Wyant said it was a poor-quality pistol that misfired several times when tested. That supports earlier testimony that Anderson’s shooting of Burkheimer was interrupted briefly when the gun jammed.
In other testimony, a deputy sheriff, Tom Percy, gave jurors a glimpse of how Anderson was captured. Percy, a member of the sheriff’s emergency response team, said he was called early Oct. 6, 2002, to a house in the 14800 block of Manor Way in Lynnwood.
He said deputies were executing a search warrant for Anderson, and eventually used a heavy dose of pepper spray to force him from his hiding place in the attic.
After the attic was flooded with the spray, Anderson finally responded to police by knocking.
“Then I heard a male voice say, ‘I’m up here, you fools,’” Percy testified.
Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or haley@heraldnet.com.
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