Cape Cod Murder

Explaining those white and blue fibers

Assume for the sake of argument that Christopher McCowen is telling the truth -- a big assumption -- when McCowen told forensic psychologist Eric Brown that he had sex with Christa Worthington on Thursday, Jan. 2, 2002 -- three days before she was found murdered.

The basis for McCowen's claim, at least to being in Worthington's house, isn't far  fetched. He was her trash hauler and visited the property every Thursday. McCowen was so well-regarded along his route that other customers baked cookies for him, according to McCowen's boss. It was the first week of the New Year and a Christmas tree remained in Christa's living room; presumably she wanted it removed after the holidays. Who better to perform this task than the trash man, especially since Worthington didn't bring her trash to the transfer station, as do many other Truro residents, but had it removed by a private hauler.

Once McCowen is in Worthington's house that Thursday, one thing leads to another and McCowen and Worthington have sex. The following evening, McCowen is drinking with friends. It's a chaotic night of boozing, fights and frequent changes in venue. After a fracas at the bar in Orleans, McCowen and one of his friends, Jeremy Frazier, end up at a crowded party in Eastham. A fight breaks out here as well -- was there a full moon that night? -- and Frazier plays an almost comical role, apparently not getting in a punch but damaging much of the furniture. McCowen and Frazier leave together, Frazier simmering with a full head of steam.

I know where we can go cool off, McCowen tells Frazier, a house owned by a nice lady I've gotten to know in Truro. When they get there, Worthington is startled. She recognizes McCowen but not his friend, and her 2-1/2- year-old daughter is trying to sleep. Sorry for the late hour, McCowen explains sheepishly, but come to think of it, I never removed that Christmas tree of yours. Warily, and against her better judgment, Worthington lets the men into her house.

It's awkward at first -- McCowen barely knows Worthington and Frazier not at all. Frazier excuses himself and goes to the bathroom; McCowen and Worthington engage in another tryst in the living room. Frazier hears them and after leaving the bathroom, goes into Worthington's office to steal from her. Worthington, aware of this, confronts Frazier after the two men leave the house. Frazier punches her, McCowen following suit, both men hitting and kicking Worthington. She hits her head so hard on the ground that she temporarily loses consciousness.

Frazier and McCowen drag and carry Worthington back into the house, McCowen then hastily leaving. But Frazier decides that since his friend has had sex with Worthington, he will too. Wasn't that, after all, the point of the evening -- going to the Juice Bar, then to the party in Eastham, and now here?

Frazier pulls down Worthington's pants and then his own and tries to have intercourse with Worthington, his white and blue Nautica sweater brushing against her pubic hair. But this besotted fireplug of a man, prematurely balding in his early 20s, is hardly the picture of health, unlike McCowen. The years of dissolution have taken their toll; Frazier is impotent. 

Worthington regains enough consciousness to realize that Frazier is trying to rape her, but is incapable of penetration. Whether Worthington mocks him or Frazier becomes aware of her realization -- either way, the angry frustrations of yet another pointless evening for him reach the boiling point. In drunken rage, Frazier reaches for a knife and stabs Worthington so hard the blade passes through her body.

After pulling up his pants, Frazier starts to wipe the blood from Worthington's body, as does McCowen, who has returned to the house to find out what is keeping Frazier. Upon seeing Worthington's bloodied body, McCowen is in a state of shock. Asked later by police to describe what happened, after DNA evidence had proved McCowen lied when denying any physical contact with Worthington, McCowen recounts the visit to the house as best he can recall, leaving out Frazier's attempt to rape Worthington because he had not witnessed it.

But perhaps there is physical evidence of this -- fibers from Frazier's sweater on Worthington's body, for example, or seminal fluid on her genitalia that might match Frazier's DNA.

In fact, evidence exactly along those lines is found by police -- sperm in Worthington's vagina that proves McCowen had intercourse with her, along with blue and white fibers and sperm found on her genitalia -- proving what? We don't know, because police did not examine the latter two pieces of evidence to determine if they matched with Frazier's sweater and semen.

One can't help but wonder if these two gaps in the investigation are enough alone to surpass the threshold of reasonable doubt for jurors to acquit McCowen.

With a man facing possible life in prison for a murder he may not have committed, is it unreasonable to want this evidence tested for a match, however belatedly, to resolve these doubts once and for all -- or for that matter, to bolster Frazier's claim of innocence?

This scenario explains the presence of McCowen's sperm in Worthington's body after she is found on Sunday -- sperm possibly left there three to five days earlier, according to expert testimony. It would explain why the sperm in Worthington's vagina did not match with Frazier's DNA -- his sperm was never there to begin with. And in this scenario, it is entirely plausible Frazier would have left seminal fluid on Worthington's genitalia, along with fibers from the white and blue sweater he wore that night.

McCowen is haunted by what has happened. He hasn't killed Worthington -- but he is surely complicit in her death. Had McCowen never suggested going to Worthington's house that night, Frazier may never have met Worthington, let alone killed her. It's all part of a pattern for McCowen -- he's never had trouble attracting women, but something always seems to go wrong. How else to explain those five restraining orders against him from five different women -- all ploys to finagle Section 8 housing vouchers from the state?

The police track down McCowen, as he knew they would, the garbageman with frequent and familiar access to the house of the wealthy woman who's been murdered. Asked by the police if he had any contact with Worthington, McCowen lies, repeatedly, just as he would had the same question been asked by police in his native Oklahoma. As McCowen remembers, the notion of a black man having sex with a white woman is almost as bad as murder to many people where he is from. The same is probably true in this isolated stretch of country along the coast, where McCowen noticed residents eying him warily long before he was charged with murder.

McCowen's only security, or so he thinks, is in lying to police and hoping they examine the evidence closely enough to corroborate his claim -- the parts of it that are true, and others McCowen simply isn't aware of.