By Brian Anderson
Contra Costa Newspapers

March 29, 2002

OAKLAND —Someone beat Vanessa Samson, then strangled the 22-year-old Pleasanton woman with a rope and their hands before she was dumped in the snow along a rural road, a pathologist testified Thursday.

In the continuing trial of James Daveggio and Michelle Michaud, Dr. Brian Peterson said Samson died of asphyxiation. He told jurors that injuries to the inner parts of her neck were of such significant force that it was probable someone had cut off her airflow with their hands. Samson's parents, brother and other relatives wiped away tears as Peterson pointed to autopsy photos of the woman's bruised and naked body. Some family members looked in the direction of Daveggio, who eyed the photos and the witness.

But Peterson and the prosecutor who called him to the stand to testify also acknowledged that the Fairfield forensic pathologist had reviewed initial autopsy results logged by a man who has since admitted an addiction to painkillers.

Conclusions were drawn, Peterson said, from autopsy photos as well as Curtis Rollins' original nine-page report, which noted Samson was strangled with a rope, but not with hands.

Rollins, who performed the examination while with the Sacramento County Coroner's Office, was indicted in Arizona last year on drug charges and later pleaded guilty. He resigned from the medical examiner's post in Coconino County, Ariz., and was sentenced last month to a year of probation.

He has since returned to the Sacramento County Coroner's Office.

Peterson said, however, he had no reason to question the procedure or the results of the autopsy and concluded it was an "excellent report."

Also taking the stand Thursday was a state criminalist who told jurors that Michaud's fingerprints were discovered on an object officials think was used to abuse Samson.

Felita Chapman, who works for the California Department of Justice, said she found four prints on the item that was discovered in a van Michaud owned.

Another scientist said earlier this week that Samson's DNA was found on that item as well as a ball gag.

Daveggio, 41, and Michaud, 43, are accused of abducting Samson on Dec. 2, 1997, as she walked to work from her parents' Pleasanton home. Her body was discovered in an Alpine County snowbank two days later.