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DNA Derails Trial In Teen's Slaying

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By TODD LESKANIC, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 10, 2007

NEW PORT RICHEY - Tara Ramsdell waited five years for the trial of Phillup Alan Partin, the man investigators say killed her daughter.
Ramsdell and her family sat through last week's painful testimony describing how 16-year-old Joshan Ashbrook was cut, bound and strangled. She watched a crime scene video showing her daughter's body lying in the woods off Shady Hills Road.

On Tuesday, Ramsdell learned she will have to endure the nightmarish images a second time when Circuit Judge William Webb granted a defense motion for mistrial. Ramsdell and her husband, Robert, were visibly upset as they left the courtroom and declined to speak with reporters.

The ruling, made over the late discovery of a DNA report Friday, negates a lengthy jury selection held Oct. 1 and four days of testimony from prosecution witnesses. Attorneys said the case probably won't be retried until next year.

'Of course, it's better this way than to have it reversed on appeal and then have to do it again two years from now,' said Assistant State Attorney Michael Halkitis.

Partin, 42, was charged with first-degree murder and faced the death penalty if the jury had found him guilty as charged.

His attorneys, William Bennett and Bjorn Brunvand, constructed a defense around the theory that Partin's longtime friend Fred Kaufman killed the teenager. Partin and his daughter Patrisha were living with Kaufman at his Port Richey home at the time of Ashbrook's death.

Key to the defense argument was a blood stain found on Shady Hills Road on Aug. 1, 2002, the same day Ashbrook's body was discovered nearby. None of the lawyers on either side knew until Friday that swabs taken from the stain had been tested for DNA at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement lab in 2006.

The results of the tests were inconclusive, meaning analysts could not determine whose blood it was or whether it came from a person or an animal. In arguing for the mistrial, Bennett told Webb that had he known of the inconclusive results, he would have had the blood retested using a different type of DNA test.

The results of the second test could have changed the entire defense case, Bennett said.

The swabs were flown to a lab in Raleigh, N.C., over the weekend in a last-ditch attempt to avert a mistrial, but attorneys learned Tuesday that the particular test requested would take two weeks. Webb said he did not want to delay the trial and risk jury contamination.

'I'm convinced that the efforts at remedying the situation have been exhausted,' he said in ruling. 'They have not been successful, and I'm convinced the situation cannot be remedied in a timely matter by declaring another lengthy recess; therefore I'm compelled to grant the motion for mistrial.'

Bennett and Brunvand argue that the blood stain is key to their defense because of its proximity to a set of tire tracks found running parallel to Shady Hills Road. Those tracks were made by the killer's vehicle, they argue.

'If Joshan Ashbrook's blood is on that road, that's my case,' Bennett said Friday.
Prosecution witnesses testified that tire tracks running into the woods and stopping near Ashbrook's body could have been made by tires known to be on Partin's Ford pickup at the time.

Prosecutors also tied Partin to Ashbrook using DNA, surveillance video and eyewitness testimony. But the evidence is circumstantial, proving Partin and Ashbrook were together on July 31, 2002, but not necessarily showing that Partin is responsible for her death.

Reporter Todd Leskanic can be reached at (727) 715-1084 or tleskanic@tampatrib.com.

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