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‘Random dude’ video that led to new trial for David Dooley shown in the courtroom Monday


By Mark Hansel
NKyTribune managing editor

The evidence that allowed David Dooley to receive a new trial was played in court Monday, but did not appear to have much of an impact, yet.

Boone County Sheriff’s Det. Brian Cochran, right, views a video showing a “random dude” on the grounds of Thermo Fisher Scientific hours before Michelle Mockbee was killed at the facility in May, 2012. Assistant Attorney General Jon Heck is at left (photo by Mark Hansel).

Dooley is charged with murder and tampering with evidence in the killing of Michelle Mockbee at Thermo Fisher Scientific in May of 2012.

He was convicted in 2014 and sentenced to life in prison.

The conviction was thrown out in May, 2017, when Boone Circuit Judge James R. Schrand ruled that evidence that may have aided in Dooley’s defense was withheld from his attorneys in the first trial. 

That evidence, a surveillance video, shows a man walking across a parking lot and approaching a door at Beckman Coulter, which shares the facility with Thermo Fisher Scientific, hours before Mockbee was killed.

It was widely reported at the time that the man in the video, identified as a “random dude,” appeared to check a door handle leading into Beckman Coulter.

Monday, Boone County Sheriff’s Det. Brian Cochran, showed a series of enhanced images from the video that appear to show the man was not trying to open the door.

Cochran explained that the man was not walking up a ramp leading to the door, but was adjacent to it. He said the man’s positioning in relation to pillars at the entrance and the fact that, as he moved closer to the building, his shoes become hidden by the ramp prove that.

Assistant Attorney General Jon Heck, who is the lead prosecutor for the Commonwealth in the retrial, asked Cochran what the images meant.

“He didn’t get anywhere close to opening a door,” Cochran said.

Michelle Mockbee, a Fort Mitchell mother of two, was killed at the Thermo Fisher Scientific plant where she worked in May, 2012. David Dooley, who worked as an outside contractor at the facility is on trial for murder in the killing (provided photo).

The proximity of the man to the door in the video, which the jury saw for the first time Monday, represents only one element of defense attorneys’ concerns regarding the evidential value of the video.

Cochran said Monday he only began to closely examine the video in June of 2017, more than five years after Mockbee was killed and a month after Dooley was granted a new trial following a CR 60.02 hearing.

At that hearing, Dooley’s defense attorneys, Deanna Dennison and Jeff Lawson argued that the man’s mere appearance on the video raises concerns about security at the facility.

The man is seen walking onto the property, approaching the door, then leaving and he is never seen on video again.

At the CR 60.02 hearing, Boone County Sheriff’s Det. Everett Stahl, one of the lead investigators in the case, said he and Det. Bruce McVay determined the “random dude” was a truck driver. 

Stahl said he came to that determination after conducting a phone interview with the truck driver, Alvin Reynolds of Texas.

Reynolds also testified at the CR 60.02 hearing, but said Stahl interviewed him by phone three times.

Reynolds testified that he never left his truck after arriving at Thermo Fisher Scientific the night before Mockbee was killed. His height and weight also appear to be inconsistent with that of the “random dude” in the video.

He produced a driver’s license that indicated his physical dimensions were roughly the same then as they were in 2012.

Chris Roach, one of Dooley’s attorneys at the first trial, said he had not seen the video prior to the CR 60.02 hearing and was never told detectives interviewed Reynolds about it.

Reynolds also testified that the man that unloaded his truck, later identified as Joe Siegert, told him someone had been killed in the building that morning.

Defense attorneys have presented Siegert as potentially an alternate suspect in Mockbee’s killing.

Truck driver Alvin Reynolds of Texas testifies at a CR 60.02 in March, 2014. Boone County Sheriff’s Det. Everett Stahl testified that investigators determined Reynolds to be the “random dude” shown in video surveillance just hours before Michelle Mockbee was killed at Fisher Thermo Scientific. David Dooley was convicted of killing Mockbee in 2014, but was granted a new trial because a judge determined the video was withheld from his trial attorneys (file photo).

At the CR 60.02 hearing, Stahl acknowledged the statement Reynolds made but said he dismissed it.

“I’m going to tell you that I took Alvin Reynolds statement that Joe Siegert said that, as (Reynolds is) not very credible,” Stahl said then. “Because it wasn’t possible for that to have been said.”

Stahl said Reynolds left the facility at right around 6 a.m., very near the time Mockbee was killed, based on a trucker’s log and video evidence.

Stahl said then he never questioned Siegert about the statement.

Stahl is expected to testify later in the trial.

Also Monday, Boone County Sheriff’s office computer crimes analyst William Samad testified about information from Dooley, his wife Janet Dooley, Mockbee and her husband Dan Mockbee, that was extracted from cell phones.

He testified about a series of text messages from that morning, including four that indicated Dan Mockbee was trying to reach his wife soon after he had been contacted by another employee about police at the facility.

The first text was sent at 8:12 a.m., more than two hours after Mockbee was killed, and appear to indicate a pattern of increased concern for her well-being.

Defense attorney Deanna Dennison has honed in on inconsistencies in the statements of employees at Thermo Fisher Scientific and that pattern continued Monday.

Dennison challenged a 20 minute minute window that is not accounted for in the work record of former temporary worker Doug Tungate. The gap comes after Tungate spoke with Mockbee at the time clock before she was killed.

Tungate said the gap represents the amount of time he needed to prepare himself and his equipment for work that day.

Doug Tungate, standing at left, testifies Monday. Tungate was a temporary employee at Fisher Thermo Fisher Scientific on May 29, 2012, when Michelle Mockbee was killed there (photo by Mark Hansel).

On redirect, Heck asked Tungate if he killed Mockbee, tried to clean up the crime scene moved her body, or helped someone else do it.

Tungate testified that he had not.

Dave Owens, a 32-year Thermo Fisher Scientific employee said he had not seen Dooley in the warehouse that day, but that the accused appeared jittery when employees were gathered in the lobby after Mockbee’s body was discovered.

Dooley and supervisor Ed Yuska discovered Mockbee’s body and Dennison suggested that might have explained Dooley’s demeanor.

Dennison also showed Owens a previous statement where he indicated he had seen Dooley in the warehouse that morning.

The defense is expected to wrap up its case this week. Witnesses are expected to include Bruce McVay, the lead detective in the original investigations.

McVay’s investigative tactics and his conduct as a law enforcement officer have been called into question in correspondences from former Boone/Gallatin Commonwealth Attorney Linda Tally Smith.

Tally Smith is also on the witness list. 

Testimony is scheduled to resume today at 9 a.m. in Courtroom 4B of the Boone County Courthouse in Burlington.

For links to the NKyTribune’s extensive coverage of the Dooley case, click here.

Contact Mark Hansel at mark.hansel@nkytrib.com


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