A few oddities…

Among the odd, stray items raised in today’s evidence: Duncan’s girlfriend in Seattle apparently had a husband and two young daughters. In a monthly report from May of 1996 from Duncan’s parole officer, Sandy Silver, presented in court today, a note at the bottom says, “Please call Dee Ellis and her husband and arrange a meeting regarding ‘visitation’ with her and her family, 2 girls age 12 & 6.” At the side, the parole officer had noted, “12 and 6 females.”

Another oddity: Duncan seemed to be suggesting that he didn’t move into the home of roommate Joseph Ruan until mid-August, when a parole report first notes that he moved. That may explain his odd questioning of Ruan and Cindy Snyder in which he suggested the events they described, and the comments they recalled him making about the two missing girls in Seattle, might not have happened because he didn’t live in the home at the time. However, his parole officer, Sandy Silver, under questioning by Duncan, told him, “I don’t know when you moved,” and reminded Duncan that he had lied to her about other matters. “Mr. Duncan, I don’t think you were particularly accurate about marijuana use, swimming pool incidents” and other things that eventually resulted in his parole being revoked, she said.

Another: Duncan has been incarcerated since his July 2005 arrest, so it’s not surprising that he looks pale. He’s looked worse and worse the last couple of days, however, his hair shaggy and unkempt. Sometimes in court he’s appeared very cold the last few days, and has burrowed his ghostly-pale right hand and wrist into the left sleeve of his garish yellow-gold jail-issue sweatshirt, hugging his then-linked arms to himself as if he were in a straitjacket.

When various witnesses have been asked to identify Duncan in the courtroom by stating where he is and what he’s wearing, some have struggled to describe Duncan’s outfit of jail-issue sweatshirt and scrubs. Ruan came the closest today. Here’s his description: “He’s wearing a mustard top with long dishwater brown hair and a beard.”