No Regrets

the Neslunds’ sunroom. There was no question thatClever, Caputo, Doss, and Mortensen had, indeed, located the physical evidence that supported Paul’s description of Rolf’s sudden death.
    Thanksgiving—to be celebrated on November 28 in 1985—was drawing near as Donald Phillips testified to the dozens of stains in the Neslund house that had proved positive for blood. The concrete slab behind the couch had not only been scrubbed with Crete-Nu, an acid wash, but the defendant and her brother had apparently “ground” it down with a power tool in an effort to scrape off any remaining bloodstains. Much of the carpet had been replaced, and Ray Clever had the receipts and the salesmen’s statements about Ruth’s purchases of new carpeting.
    Ruth had had a ready explanation for spiffing up her house so soon after Rolf’s unexplained departure. She told her brother Paul that she was laying new carpets in her home because Robert Goulet, the well-known singer, was interested in buying it, and would be coming by to tour it. That caused a ripple of interest in the gallery.
    One of the most effective witnesses on the bloody mist that had barely dotted the living room ceiling on Alec Bay Road was Sergeant Rod Englert, then a homicide investigator for the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office in Portland. In the next two decades, Englert would go on to become one of the most renowned experts in the world on blood spatter. The patterns that blood etches as it sprays, splashes, or drains from all manner of wounds—stab, bludgeon, or gunshot—are predictable. Englert was adamant that the high-velocity blood mist had come from a gunshot wound. The amount was too minute for him to say whether it was animal blood or human blood, but the Portland detective said positively that it had risen from the flesh of some creature who had been shot.
    Criminalist Michael Grubb testified about the Smith & Wesson .38 found in Ruth’s dresser drawer. Although someone had given it a cursory cleaning, he had examined it under a high-powered microscope. And he had found eight small blood droplets on the face of the gun’s cylinder, one blood flake which was loose but still adhering to the extractor shroud, and two small blood spots under the thumbpiece (the mechanism that slides forward to release the cylinder). Each spot proved positive for the presence of blood. Whoever cleaned the gun would not have noticed those last spots when the thumbpiece was in its normal position.
    The person shot would not have been more than three feet from the shooter, probably less.
    Nellie Horan, the office manager of the
Journal,
testified that Ruth had placed classified ads on August 20, 1980, to sell Rolf’s Mustang, camper, boat, and the home itself.
    Ruth didn’t advertise Rolf’s clothing; she had offered that to Joy Stroup, whose husband was about the same size. Joy had declined.
    Everyone had been afraid of a mistrial, but so far this trial had evaded any number of pitfalls. One thing nobody worried much about was the weather. Winter storms in the Northwest almost always meant heavy rain and high winds, but everyone was used to that. Snow didn’t fall that often, and when it did, it rarely stayed on the ground. It usually melted within a day.
    But during Thanksgiving week 1985, a blizzard warning for the San Juan Islands caused a great deal of consternation. Two upcoming witnesses for the prosecution whodrew a good deal of interest were flying all the way from Norway. Harald Naeslund and Eugenie Marie Naeslund Lindboe, Rolf’s siblings, had waited five years to see justice done for their brother, and they were determined to tell the jury about him and the odd way he had suddenly dropped out of their lives.
    But now there was a question of whether Harald and Eugenie’s plane could land safely and if they could get from SeaTac Airport south of Seattle all the way up to Friday Harbor.
    A foot of snow fell, completely transforming the landscape in the San Juan Islands, choking the roads and streets, and disrupting ferry schedules. The temperature stayed frigid, and the snow did not melt. It was lovely to look at, but almost every business was forced to shut down.
    The trial did not. The jury was adamant that they would not allow a snowstorm to cause a mistrial, not at this point.
    “We made up our minds we would get to court any way we could,” Lisa Boyd says. “It was easier, of course, for the jurors who lived in Friday Harbor. For the whole