Gunshot residue, wound examined in Fanion murder trial

March 16, 2023 | Cliff Clark
cclark@thereminder.com

SPRINGFIELD —  In the second week of the murder trial of Brian Fanion, the former Westfield police detective accused of shooting his wife, prosecutors called witnesses who processed the evidence collected at the Westfield home where Amy Fanion was shot in May 2018.

Brian and Amy Fanion’s daughter, Victoria Fanion, also testified to her mother’s alleged temper and that her father appeared distant days before the shooting on May 8, 2018.

On March 7, Jessica Brown, a forensic scientist with the State Police Crime Lab’s Trace, Arson and Explosives Unit, testified that when the state laboratory conducted tests on swabs taken from the hands of Brian and Amy Fanion, on the day of shooting, both tested positive for traces of gunshot primer residue.

Brian Fanion, 59, was charged with first-degree murder in November 2019 after a lengthy investigation, and remained free on bail since February 2020.

The state’s lead prosecutor in the case, Hampden County Assistant District Attorney Mary Sandstrom, has alleged Brian Fanion shot his wife, who was 51 at the time, because he was romantically involved with another woman and that he didn’t want to split his pension when he retired from the Westfield Police Department after 34 years.

Brian Fanion has maintained since the shooting that his wife killed herself during lunch at their home on North Road in Westfield after she flew into a rage over the ongoing argument the couple was having about their plans once he retired.

Jessica Brown told jurors that gunshot primer residue didn’t necessarily indicate who may or may not have fired a weapon, because the residue tends to spread throughout the general area where a gun is fired, and can settle on any number of items.

She also testified the residue can be easily transferred from person to person, and that it can be done by hand-to-hand contact, or by touching an item where the residue has settled.

In earlier testimony from Amy Fanion’s brother, Eric Hansen, he said when he went into the house just after the shooting, Brian Fanion was kneeling over Amy holding her hands in his.

Because Brian and Amy Fanion both had residues on their hands, the lab did not test his clothing, Brown testified.

However, blood was found on Brian Fanion’s clothing, the cuffs of his shirt, and on the left knee and cuff around his ankles on the pants he was wearing that day.

When Victoria Fanion testified on March 9 – she was called as a state witness – Sandstrom asked her about a discussion she had with her mother days before the shooting.

Victoria Fanion testified that while the three were walking to an ice cream shop, she noticed her father was distant, which her mother confirmed.

Sandstrom also asked the Fanions’ daughter if she and her mother ever had a conversation about suicide. Victoria Fanion said yes, but that her mother told her it was selfish.

When Brian Fanion’s defense attorney, Jeffrey Brown, cross-examined Victoria Fanion, she testified about her mother’s temper.

Brown asked Victoria Fanion if “it was ‘her way or the highway’” and if “she didn’t get her way, she would get upset,” Victoria Fanion said yes, but earlier testified that her mother had never threatened to hurt herself when angry.

The lawyers also questioned Victoria Fanion about how her father handled his department-issued handgun.

The defense has alleged that Brian Fanion removed his Smith & Wesson .45 caliber department-issue handgun to go to the bathroom, and his wife picked it up and shot herself.

Jeffrey Brown asked Victoria Fanion if she ever carried a handgun and if she would take it off before she went to the bathroom.

She said yes, and then explained that if she didn’t, it would drop to the floor.

Brown said in his opening statement that Brian Fanion had removed his gun – for the same reason, it would drop to the floor – and left it in a hutch in the dining room while using the bathroom on the day of the shooting.

Victoria also testified she rarely visited her parents’ home during lunch, under questioning by Jeffrey Brown, suggesting she wouldn’t know her parents’ lunch routine.

On March 9 and 10, a state firearms expert testifying for the prosecution said that based on his practical field experience, Amy Fanion was shot from a distance of “over 18 inches without anything intervening.”

When Jeffrey Brown began his cross examination of John Schrijn, who examined the room where the shooting occurred and Amy Fanion’s wound, he immediately reminded the firearms expert that only minutes before, when answering Sandstrom’s question about his opinion of the distance between the gun and Amy Fanion’s head, he qualified it “without any interven[tion].”

Schrijn acknowledged the qualification.

Schrijn also testified that he conducted a test, using 20 women, to determine if Amy Fanion could have held the gun far enough from her head that it would have eliminated, or masked, any evidence being found in the fatal wound.

Sandstrom has alleged that because there was no soot, gunshot residue, stippling or a star-shaped pattern typically seen in a self-inflicted gunshot, Brian Fanion must have pulled the trigger.

Schrijn testified that none of the women who participated in the test could hold the gun in a position, and pull the trigger without his assistance, where it wouldn’t have left clear evidence of a gunshot wound and followed the trajectory he believed the bullet traveled.

Jeffrey Brown, while cross examining Schrijn, said the expert wasn’t accurately testing where the bullet entered Amy Fanion’s head.

Schrijn testified the wound was above and behind Amy Fanion’s right ear.

However, Brown said the wound was in front of the midline of Amy Fanion’s skull, which would have meant the wound was over her right ear.

Jeffrey Brown has also suggested to the jury that Amy Fanion’s thick hair and the way she styled it eliminated or masked the gunshot wound evidence, like soot, stippling or a star-shaped pattern around the wound.

On March 10, Jeffrey Brown also called his first expert witness of the trial, a blood pattern analyst.

In an effort to explain the lack of gunshot residue evidence in and around the fatal wound, the expert testified that it is impossible to say with certainty why in some situations there is observable evidence and in others none.

On March 8, Superior Court Judge Jane Mulqueen told the jury that she expected closing statements to be delivered March 14 or 15. The jury’s verdict and judge’s sentencing would follow.

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