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47 °F Forecast | Road Cams Thursday, February 26, 2004 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find a Rental Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Email Story to a Friend February 6, 2004 Police don’t buy Repp suicide scenario By SARAH LEMON Mail Tribune Kerry Repp’s death scene seemed odd from the beginning, police said. Investigators testifying Thursday in the murder trial of Repp’s husband, Gary Marvin Repp Jr., said numerous clues suggested Kerry Repp’s suicide was, in fact, a staged slaying. There was too much blood, smeared from one end of the Repps’ bed to the other and onto the walls and carpet. The bedding was twisted as if Kerry Repp had struggled. An autopsy would later determine she had been shot four times. "This didn’t look like a normal unattended death to me," said former Central Point officer Shawn Vollrath, now employed by the Medford Police Department. Kerry Repp’s right hand grasped a handgun, but her finger was not on the trigger. The gun dripped with blood, but none of it was on Kerry’s own palm, forensic investigators said. Someone placed the gun in Kerry’s bruised hand, said Oregon State Police criminalist John Amish. Advertisement While prosecutors Thursday presented detailed scientific evidence leading to the arrest of Gary Repp, Repp’s defense attorneys called police procedures and investigative scope into question. The first detective to arrive at the house opened the windows and a sliding glass door in the master bedroom, which was stifling and had a foul odor, said Sgt. Mike Wojack, of the Central Point Police Department. He arrived more than four hours after the presumed time of her death. Temperature is one factor that allows medical examiners to determine the time of death, said defense attorney Carl Caplan. Changing the room’s temperature would make that task much more difficult, he said. Medical examiners testifying for the prosecution agreed. Kerry Repp was last alive when a 9-1-1 call was placed from the Repp’s Central Point home at 8:23 a.m. the morning of May 4, 2002, according to Repp’s defense team. The call reached police dispatchers, but the dispatcher disconnected the line when she received no response. No officers were sent to the house. Played for Jackson County Circuit Court jurors, the taped 9-1-1 call revealed little about Kerry Repp’s last moments alive. The audio tape captured a muffled voice and several popping or static-like sounds. No words were obvious. The prosecution offered no interpretation of the recording Thursday. A cordless telephone spattered with Kerry Repp’s blood and pieces of her teeth was found under the bed. Detectives pressed the redial button and found the last number dialed was 9-1-1. However, detectives did not locate a dispatch recording of the call until three months after Repp’s arrest. Until that discovery, police proceeded as if Kerry Repp had been slain four hours earlier, Caplan said. One neighbor told investigators she heard sounds that may have been gunshots at about 4 a.m. The call’s discovery significantly narrowed the time line of Kerry’s murder, which took place, Caplan said, after her husband had left the house to take the children to a Little League event at baseball fields on Hanley Road. But as Caplan probed at investigators’ inconsistencies, police pointed out anomalies in his client’s behavior. After leaving the baseball fields, Repp didn’t take a direct route to Ray’s Food Place where he said he stopped before driving to a rural campsite, said Medford police Sgt. Tim Doney. Instead, Repp took a meandering route from Pine Street, past his house on Hazel Street, to Table Rock Road. Once Oregon State Police troopers located the campsite to tell Repp of his wife’s death, he didn’t ask any of the usual questions about how she died, Huddleston said. Forensic scientists are expected to present more evidence gathered at the murder scene as the trial continues today. Reach reporter Sarah Lemonat 776-4487, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2004 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. 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