By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
Evidence that requires particular types of technological skill or knowledge to extract and/or correctly interpret the information appears to be the focus, for now, of attorneys on both sides of a homicide case in which a woman and her daughter are accused of killing their husband and father, respectively.
At a pretrial conference Thursday morning in Barren Circuit court for the cases of Donna Cheryl Logsdon and her daughter, Cheryl Leighanne Bennett, the prosecutor discussed some of the lingering issues related to obtaining data evidence, including that contained on a memory card that is said to have been in the BiPap – bilevel positive airway pressure – machine upon which Michael “Mickey” Logsdon relied for his breathing when he died July 9, 2022.
The defendants have been accused of unplugging or turning off the machine multiple times during the night and ultimately leaving it unplugged or powered off, causing Mickey Logsdon’s death.
Commonwealth’s Attorney Blake Chambers, the special prosecutor most recently assigned to the case, told Circuit Judge John T. Alexander that, since the last time the case was in court, March 8, a court order had been issued to compel release of information from the Ring doorbell/camera system, and it turned out they needed a search warrant, which was then obtained, but to date, that information had not been received.
Arrangements had been made for the BiPap machine that had been held in evidence to be brought to the courthouse for that March appearance, so the defense and prosecuting attorneys could examine it, and at the conclusion of that proceeding, the judge said he would leave the room but they would remain on the record until they were finished. Chambers recounted that they’d performed their examinations, “so that’s been completed to everybody’s satisfaction.”
The other issue, he said, was the data memory card from the machine. He said they’d left court in March with the understanding the data would be downloaded and the commonwealth would pursue the best route for that, but they learned soon after that that if the person they were going to have conduct the download – a respiratory therapist – did the download, “there was a chance that it would cause the data to be removed from the … card basically forever.”
With that knowledge, he said he contacted John Olash, Bennett’s attorney about it, thinking he may want to perform an independent data extraction that may not be possible if it was done as originally intended.
He said they reached an agreement to look at ways they could get the extraction done in a way that would satisfy them both, but that meant they couldn’t have the data by Thursday’s court date, so an extension of the deadline was requested.
After their exploring a variety of avenues, he said, his preference was probably to go through the pulmonologist at Vanderbilt who prescribed the use of the machine, and it is believed they’ll be able to work out a way to satisfy both sides, but they aren’t quite there yet.
Olash agreed they wanted to continue working on that and hoped to have the information by whenever the next court date would be.
Alexander noted that in his past experience with Vanderbilt, getting information can require jumping through a lot of hoops, so he would understand if they need to make extra, specific requests of him for documentation and would be available to assist with any such “hoop navigation.”
With that, the discussion proceeded to three new motions Olash had submitted electronically toward the end of the day Wednesday, and Chambers said that he had no objection to the first two, provided the proposed orders contained certain language.
Olash, repeating a desire he’s mentioned previously, said he had spoken with Chambers about trying to get the “raw records” of the data transmitted by the BiPap machine(s) used in the hours leading up to the death, rather than summaries of the information, and they both believed it may take a separate court order, so that was the first motion.
The second involved getting data extracted from Bennett’s cell phone. In addition, Mickey Logsdon’s phone had been in evidence and a “simple extraction” had been done, Olash said. He said that based on some evidence he’s acquired, they would like to get an independent extraction done from the deceased’s phone.
“We think that it would recover additional data,” Olash said.
In his third motion, the defense attorney asked for a preliminary type of hearing known as a Daubert hearing, to determine whether the testimony anticipated at trial of the respiratory therapist mentioned earlier, a Natasha Mahaney, would qualify as expert testimony.
He thinks that what she has stated before may be based upon a “false impression of the case.” He said he thinks this because another respiratory therapist he interviewed disputes what Mahaney has said with regard to the machine’s functionality, for example, and whether it was turned off and on.
Olash said he’s also having trouble finding anyone independent of the case to discuss the findings about the machine and/or its data.
Chambers said he’s had that same problem to some extent, in that a lot of people “don’t want to touch it.”
As for the Daubert hearing, the prosecutor said the motion is “well-taken but a little premature.” He added that he doesn’t even know yet whether he would call Mahaney as a witness and he was thinking he would be more likely to have an expert regarding whatever data is obtained from the memory card from the machine.
Chambers asked that the judge temporarily hold off on ruling on that motion, at least until the memory card data is extracted.
Olash attempted to impress upon the judge a need for timeliness by noting that his client is on home incarceration and, regarding her mother, age 72, he said, “Her best days, frankly, are behind her,” and added that she is aging at a faster than expected rate due to the stress of the case, so they both want to get all this behind them.
Alexander said that while he can understand their desire to move forward and not have these charges hanging over them, “some of that is just kind of inherent to what we do.”
He agreed that the decision on the Daubert hearing could wait just a bit.
The judge suggested that at their next pretrial conference, which was set for June 7, they may want to go ahead and get a trial date scheduled to get it on the calendar, because it likely would still be “a while.” In the meantime, he expected they would continue working on retrieving the various types of informational evidence they are seeking.
After that March appearance, Alexander had considered the information presented to him then and had amended the bond and its conditions for Bennett, who is now back on home incarceration. She had violated the terms of her bond at least three times by using drugs and had gone to an out-of-state treatment facility in the midst of being in and out of jail due to those violations. She had been in jail since October, as Alexander had increased the financial requirement for her bond, and she asked the judge in March for access for some type of long-term addiction treatment, because she thought it would help her ability to stay drug-free and thus comply with the conditions. In a March 13 order, Alexander reduced her bond to $100,000, with a requirement to pay 10 percent in cash and the allowance of the rest in the form of an approved surety; placed her back on home incarceration and required a GPS monitoring device; ordered that she participate in intensive outpatient treatment with an approved provider; and required that she have no new violations of the law and no arrests and that she not use alcohol, illegal drugs or other intoxicants and that she is subject to random drug tests. She is allowed to go to certain types of appointments, though, and is required to attend all scheduled court proceedings.
Logsdon was released roughly two weeks after her arrest in January 2023 on a $500,000 surety bond and has remained out of jail since.
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