By Mark Hansel
NKyTribune managing editor
The first day of a hearing to determine if David Wayne Dooley will get a new trial began Monday with the consideration of several motions, testimony from Dooley’s former attorney and a truck driver, and discussion of a “random dude.”
David Wayne Dooley appeared in a Boone County courtroom Monday for a CR 60.02 hearing, to determine if he will be granted a new trial. Dooley was convicted of killing Michelle Mockbee at Thermo Fisher Scientific in Florence in 2012 (photos by Mark Hansel).
In 2014, Dooley was convicted of killing Michelle Mockbee, a Fort Mitchell mother of two, on May 29, 2012.
He has always maintained his innocence.
Dooley and Mockbee were coworkers at Thermo Fisher Scientific when Mockbee was bludgeoned to death outside of the company’s facility in the Northern Kentucky Industrial Park.
Dooley’s attorneys, Deanna Dennison and Jeff Lawson, began by requesting that Judge James R. Schrand recuse himself, citing his familiarity with Commonwealth’s Attorney Linda Tally Smith and her husband, District Court Judge Jeffrey Smith.
“It’s my understanding that the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s husband is a District Court Judge, he’s in this courthouse (but) I don’t know specifically what the relationship is with you and him,” Dennison said. “I don’t know what the relationship is with you and the Commonwealth’s Attorney, whether it’s professional, whether it’s socializing, I don’t know all of that.”
Evidence that is expected to be presented at the hearing calls Tally Smith’s conduct at Dooley’s trial into question along with that of the now-retired Bruce McVay, who was the lead detective in the case.
McVay’s attorney has said his client had a personal relationship with Tally Smith.
David Dooley’s attorney Deanna Dennison (left) speaks with attorney Chris Roach prior to Monday’s hearing. Roach represented Dooley in the trial where he was convicted of killing Michelle Mockbee.
Dennison also pointed to Schrand’s prior professional relationship with the Boone County Sheriff’s Department in requesting the recusal.
“I know that you were a Boone County Attorney at one point and time…we were concerned about the fact that you have represented the Boone County Sheriff’s Department and those are several of the witnesses that will be testifying in these proceedings,” Dennison said.
Schrand, who presided over Dooley’s trial that resulted in the murder conviction, denied that motion without comment.
Dennison also asked that she be allowed to present her evidence first even though it was the Attorney General’s office, on behalf of the Commonwealth’s Attorney, that requested the CR 60.02 hearing.
The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) took over the case from Tally Smith when questions arose about her conduct during and after Dooley’s trial. Usually a CR 60.02 hearing, which allows for a new trial under certain circumstances, is requested by the defense attorney.
Special Prosecutor Shawna Kincer and Deputy Attorney General J. Michael Brown will present the case for the OAG’s office.
Brown said the request for the CR 60.02 hearing was made to ensure procedure was followed.
“We do believe that the Commonwealth got it right,” Brown said. “We do believe that Mr. Dooley murdered Michelle Mockbee. The question is, not just did the Commonwealth get it right, did the Commonwealth do it right.”
Schrand allowed Dennison’s motion to present her evidence first.
Tally Smith was in the courtroom for the motions, but left before the first witness was called.
Deputy Attorney General J. Michael Brown and Special Prosecutor Shawna Kincer will present the case for the OAG’s office. Jennifer Schneider, Michelle Mockbee’s sister, is at far right.
Dennison filed an electronic memorandum March 9, which outlined much of the argument she will use in seeking a new trial for Dooley.
Her first witness was Chris Roach, one of the attorneys who represented Dooley at the murder trial. Roach took over after Eric Deters, Dooley’s original attorney, was suspended.
He said at the time of the Dooley trial he had only represented clients in three jury trials and a few bench trials.
Dennison asked a series of questions that appeared to be designed to indicate the Commonwealth’s Attorney and the Boone County Sheriff’s office delayed and withheld providing evidence to Dooley’s attorneys.
Roach was shown a video, which he stated he had never seen before, that showed a man walking up to an outside door and attempting to enter Thermo Fisher Scientific roughly 10 hours before Mockbee was killed.
The man, whom investigators identified as a “random dude,” was never located or identified.
Roach acknowledged that investigators provided him with several other tips, including one about a woman that he identified as a “dream suspect.”
“Right, they provided that to you, (but not the video),” Dennison said.
A key point of the Commonwealth Attorney’s case was that there were few people onsite, or with access to Thermo Fisher Scientific, at the time of the killing.
In the memorandum filed March 9, Tally Smith references concerns over a video that she indicates she became aware of only after the trial.
Truck driver Alvin Reynolds testified that a fork lift operator at Thermo Fisher Scientific told him someone had been killed at the facility on the morning of May 29, 2012, but his timeline of events is inconsistent with evidence presented at trial.
“And I get to live with the worry that someone on the defense side will find it at some point and that we’ll all wind up in trouble over it. And the entire case will be tainted because of it,”
Tally Smith’s attorney, Luke Morgan, who was also in the courtroom Monday, said comments attributed to his client in the memorandum were “taken out of context.”
The memorandum indicates Boone County Sheriff’s Detective Everett Stahl tried to identify the “random dude” as a truck driver that parked a trailer in the Thermo Fisher Scientific parking lot May 28, while waiting to deliver a load.
Stahl located the driver, identified as Alvin Reynolds, obtained a copy of his driver’s license and interviewed him.
Reynolds said he spoke with investigators from the Boone County Sheriff’s office a total of three times, but never spoke with any of Dooley’s defense attorneys.
Roach, Dooley’s trial attorney, said he had no knowledge of the interviews prior to Monday’s hearing.
Dennison contended, and Roach agreed, that information about Reynolds would have been a valuable piece of potentially exculpatory evidence that should have been given to the defense.
Reynolds was called as the last witness Monday and provided some additional insights into the events of May 28 and May 29.
He acknowledged arriving at Thermo Fisher Scientific on May 28, but said he did not leave his truck until he was awakened the next morning by a fork lift operator, identified as Joe Siegert.
At this point in the testimony, Reynolds’ account becomes inconsistent with the timeline identified for Mockbee’s killing.
Reynolds said it takes between 30 and 45 minutes to have his truck unloaded and a log indicates he left the facility shortly after 6 a.m. He also stated that the fork lift operator, presumably Siegert, told him when he arrived that someone had been killed at the facility.
The memorandum indicates Mockbee was killed soon after she arrived at work at 5:53 a.m., and an employee called 911 at 7:15 a.m. to report her body had been discovered.
Special Prosecutor Kinser initially suggested the forklift operator might have told Reynolds about the killing during a subsequent visit. Reynolds, however, said he checked personnel records, which indicated he has not been back to Thermo Fisher Scientific since May 29, 2012, the day Mockbee was killed.
Lawson asked Reynolds if the conversation could have taken place earlier, perhaps before the truck was unloaded, but the truck driver was adamant about the timeline. He was just as sure about the content of the conversation with the fork lift driver about someone being killed at the facility.
Reynolds did acknowledge that he sometimes talks with employees after his truck is unloaded, but the discrepancy between his testimony and the timeline was never reconciled by his testimony.
The hearing will resume today at 11 a.m. and is expected to last for several days. Tally Smith, McVay and Deters are among those expected to testify.
Contact Mark Hansel at mark.hansel@nkytribune.com
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You might also be interested in this pre-hearing story in the NKyTribune: Explosive allegations
