Official admits misstating amount of poison in victim's stomach
(Published Friday, August 3, 2007 10:32:35 AM CST)
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
Associated Press
KENOSHA, Wis. - A toxicologist admitted Thursday he may have overstated how much poison was in a dead woman's stomach to a prosecutor who included it in a letter to the accused murderer's attorneys.
Toxicologist Christopher Long testified in a hearing to determine whether certain evidence could be included at the October trial of Mark Jensen, 47, of Kenosha.
He's accused of poisoning his 40-year-old wife, Julie Jensen, with ethylene glycol, a difficult-to-detect chemical found in antifreeze.
A questionable piece of evidence is a letter written by Julie Jensen, which asks authorities to investigate Mark Jensen if she died.
Defense attorneys maintain that Julie Jensen killed herself and framed her husband because she learned he was having an affair.
District Attorney Robert Jambois sent a letter to Jensen's defense attorneys with Long's expected testimony. Long said he reported that there was a "very large quantity" of ethylene glycol in Julie Jensen's stomach when she died.
He admitted Thursday that Julie Jensen likely only had a couple of teaspoons of ethylene glycol in her stomach, which is not "very large." But compared to the "very small" amount of the chemical found in Julie Jensen's blood, the stomach contents seemed larger, proportionally.
"If I had it to do over, I would have phrased it better. ... When I said large amount, maybe I overstated it," said Long, a poison expert for St. Louis University School of Medicine and the chief toxicologist for St. Louis County in Missouri.
Long also testified about what Julie Jensen might have experienced in her final days, which Long said likely began Dec. 1, 1998.
On that first day, Long said Julie Jensen probably stumbled, had trouble communicating and appeared drunk. That is consistent with what Mark told police about Julie's behavior on Dec. 1, according to his statement.
By Dec. 2, Julie's body would have started producing acid because of the poison in her system. She would have craved water and vomited often.
According to his police statement, Mark said Julie threw up Dec. 2 and Dec. 3. By Dec. 3, the day she died, Julie would have found it difficult to get out of bed, Long said. Her heart would have raced and she would have had trouble breathing, too.
