Prosecutors focused on blood spatter Tuesday at the trial of an Orland Park man accused of fatally shooting his wife in 2010.
Allan Kustok, 63, is charged with killing his wife, Anita "Jeanie" Kustok by shooting her in the face with a .357-caliber revolver as she slept in their bed.
Kustok maintains that Jeanie shot herself, but prosecutors tried to pick apart his alibi Tuesday by focusing on the scientific evidence at the scene.
Blood spatter expert Rod Englert told the jury that they only need focus on the patterns the blood created. He reconstructed the Kustok's bedroom and used his analysis to conclude that it would have been nearly impossible for the 58-year-old woman to take her own life.
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Englert began his testimony with a lesson in blood spatter analysis, complete with a demonstration using eye droppers and fake blood to show the differences between simple contact transfers of blood, and tiny droplets of high-velocity impact spatter -- the kind produced by a gunshot wound.
Jeanie Kustok died from a single gunshot to the left side of her face, a position Englert says would have been very hard for her to achieve on her own.
He also showed the jury an autopsy photo of Kustock with an oval wound free of abrasion wounds, suggesting the gun was held more than 6 inches away from her face.
"Most often it is a contact wound when people self inflict," Englert said.
Englert also focused on Allan Kustok's glasses, which at first seemed to show evidence of high-velocity spatter. When Englert later examined them, the spatter appeared to be gone. Further analysis, he said, showed the dried blood spatters had fallen off the glasses and collected on the bottom of the envelope.
Englert says the glasses, shorts and t-shirt Allan Kustok wore that day are crucial to the case because there's only a certain way he could have been standing to receive that blood spatter pattern.
There's no way he could have been in another room or next to his wife when the gunshot went off that he could have received that blood spatter pattern, Englert says.
Defense lawyers will cross-examine Englert on Wednesday.
The Kustok's daughter, Sarah, could take the stand Wednesday as well.
