volumes about the guyâs mind-set and motive. Apparently, in one of those cases up north, Saxton broke into an elderly womanâs home and wound up waking her up while on top of her. She was able to get away, grabbed a shotgun she had nearby, and chased him out of her house.
Buttram believed Saxtonâs true motivation revolved around a repressed, abnormal sexual nature, surrounded by violent tendencies many serial rapists display. And the only reason he didnât commit a rape that they knew of was because âhe just hadnât gotten to that point yetâ in his evolutionary development as a sexual predator.
âFirst heâs caught peeping,â the detective concluded. âThen heâs standing over the women after breaking and entering into their homes. Then thereâs Melissaâs case, where he attacks. And I think he would have killed Melissa and the army sergeant if they hadnât fought back.â
CHAPTER 29
FINGERPRINT MAN
There are not too many cases like Melissaâs and the additional attacks Scott Saxton was accused of that ever go to trial. Most of the time the perpetrator is faced with overwhelming evidenceâeither DNA, blood, or eyewitness testimonyâand the crimes so vile and violentâwith the victim sometimes ready and willing to sit in a court of law and tell her storyâthe perp is forced into cutting a deal.
There was a hearing several months after Saxtonâs arrest in which the prosecutor, Phil Blowers, laid out part of his case against Saxton. During this hearing Saxtonâs attorney, Jeff Baldwin, was able to question the forensic examiner, scientist David Zauner, who had found the fingerprint evidence connected to Scott Saxton inside Melissaâs apartment. As evidence in these cases go, this was not a slam dunk by any meansâSaxton lived across the hall at one time. He couldâand wouldâsay that he had been invited into Melissaâs apartment.
On the other hand, once Blowers brought Melissa in to tell her story, which would sit as a precedent, before the other victims of Saxtonâs madness and violence told their stories, there was no juror in the county who would ever believe this man was not a serial offender and a great threat and danger to society.
At this hearing David Zauner explained to the court that during a âhigh-intensity light sourceâ search of Melissaâs apartment, he was unable to find any prints. âIn my visual examination, [however], I did.â
Zauner explained further that the prints he located were actually found âin some dried reddish brown material and it was on a short section of wall on the left side of the entry from the front hallway into the living room.â
He was speaking of the archway and a âpartial palm printâ found there.
The second print Zauner located happened to be on the âexterior of the sliding glass door at the back of the apartment.â
Saxtonâs lawyer questioned Zauner over how he took prints from Saxton and if there was anyone else on hand when he did. It was a simple defense tactic: attack the MO of the witness and see if anything pops.
Zauner said that, of course, there were others present. Scott Saxton was in jail at the time.
There was some discussion about palm prints and how good they were as compared to a thumb or any other fingerprint.
Basically, there was no difference. Everyone had a different palm print. It being a partial palm print also had little to do with disproving it was Scott Saxtonâs.
What Zauner testified to emphatically was that the palm print was definitely not Melissaâs. Her palm print had âdistortion,â and the one he found on the archway did not. This was a clear indication that it was not hers.
What made the print so easy to read was the fact that Saxton had blood on his palm at some point while inside the apartment and touched the archway with that palm, leaving behind a print
Alice Ward, Jessica Blake