Father challenged on why DNA was on daughter's underwear in Worcester bridge attack trial
In a searing cross-examination in Worcester Superior Court on Tuesday morning, a father was pressed to explain why his DNA was found on his daughter's underwear — even though its his childhood best friend, Joshua Hubert , who stands accused of raping and trying to kill the girl.
"Just a coincidence?" asked Hubert's attorney, Kevin Larson, in the courtroom on Tuesday. The 42-year-old Worcester man on the stand blinked and said, slowly, "What is a coincidence?"
"Just a coincidence your sperm was on your daughter's underwear the night she said she was kidnapped and thrown into Lake Quinsigamond?" the defense attorney asked.
The man softly replied, "Yes."
Hubert, 43, faces several indictments in connection with the attempted murder and rape of a 7-year-old girl in Worcester in 2017, which are being combined into one case for the trial that began last week.
Prosecutors say Hubert — a childhood friend of the victim's father — kidnapped the girl from her grandparents' home after a party, then raped and strangled her in his car before throwing her from the Interstate 290 overpass into Lake Quinsigamond.
The girl survived and told police that it was her "dad's friend Josh" who had thrown her from the bridge.
Hubert has been charged with two counts of attempted murder and two counts of the rape of a child, along with strangulation and kidnapping charges.
But, as prosecutors admitted in opening statements on Monday, no forensic DNA evidence links Hubert to the crime, even after testing on his car, its interior and the girl's clothing.
However, there is sperm cell DNA evidence that was found on the child's underwear that belongs to her father.
'I don't know how it got there,' father says
The father, the girl's mother and the girl testified on Monday. The divorced parents gave their own explanations about how the father's DNA might have been on their daughter's underwear — the mother said it could have been from mixed laundry in the bathroom hamper.
The father also said it could have been from dirty laundry, but added that he masturbated in the bathroom and had sexual intercourse with the mother there.
Then, when the father continued his testimony on Tuesday, Larson asked about the mixed clothing in the hamper situation, and the father offered more vague answers.
"I don't know how it got there," he told the jury at first. Larson pressed him further, asking if he understood where semen comes from and that it was on his daughter's underwear.
"And you're telling this jury you don't know how it got there?" Larson asked again.
"That is correct," the father said.
When questioned further, he denied ever masturbating into his daughter's underwear, nor having any sexual attraction to her clothing. Larson also brought up that the hamper is actually located outside of the bathroom, and asked how it's possible that his DNA could have gotten out there.
"It could have gotten on a piece of clothing that was in the bathroom," the father said, adding that that piece of clothing could have been "picked up" and put into the hamper.
Questions about a DNA rape Kit
Larson asked the father about the morning at the hospital after his daughter's kidnapping on Aug. 27, 2017, and what interactions the father had with hospital staff who were caring for his daughter.
"You were asked, as her father, if you would consent to a rape kit, true?" Larson asked. The father said he "didn't remember," but that he "definitely didn't refuse" any rape kit testing that morning.
When prosecutor Mark McShera stood for the redirect, he asked the father how police obtained his DNA for a sample.
The father said he had been told there was "unidentified" DNA found on the girl's underwear when police asked him for a sample. He did not specify when investigators made the request.
The father voluntarily provided his DNA to the investigators at that time, he testified, but did not say what year.
After partial testimony from Hubert's ex-girlfriend on Tuesday and the jury was sent home for the day, a Larson declined to comment on his cross-examination with the father.
However, Larson said there was a new piece of evidence brought to his attention Tuesday — cellphone tower mapping of Hubert's phone — that would help his client's case. That evidence will now be entered into trial, he added.
"I need to look at it more carefully, figure out how it's going to be handled ... figure out what to do about the fact that it's just being given to me now, eight years after this event happened, considering that it's exculpatory and not inculpatory," he said.
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