Robert Shawn Yao

Called by the State late on Day 1 as a forensic supervisor with roughly 25 combined years at FDLE and the Tallahassee Police Department, Yao was offered on a single narrow question: whether the physical evidence at the Markel shooting scene was more consistent with a taller or a shorter shooter. He described his background in crime scene analysis and bullet-path documentation, distinguished that discipline from full trajectory analysis — a narrower qualification he said he had not previously held — and confirmed he had been at the original scene and had since reviewed the forensic specialist's report, the medical examiner's report, photographs, and sketches. In a proffer taken at the court's direction, he identified the approximately 49-inch height of the entry hole in the driver's-side window and the downward path of the wound as the basis for an opinion favoring a shooter near six feet tall over one around five-foot-four. He also acknowledged that his deposition had treated the window-hole height as consistent with either height. Defense counsel objected, and the court ended the day without ruling, directing that Yao remain for further examination after the jury left and be recalled.

Day 2 opened with two challenges to that opinion outside the jury's presence. Saam Zangeneh argued a discovery violation, contending Yao had updated his opinion and notified only the attorney who had deposed him rather than all defense counsel, leaving the defense without time to retain its own firearms expert. The court found a technical but non-willful violation and denied exclusion, finding no procedural prejudice. Zangeneh separately argued the opinion rested on speculation — unknown decedent body position, firearm angle, firearm height, and shooting stance layered over the single concrete 49-inch datum — and would mislead the jury. The State responded that analyzing a bullet path between two fixed points is well-established methodology with nothing novel in its application. The court overruled the Daubert challenge, finding the methodology not novel and the assumptions a matter for cross-examination.

On direct before the jury, both defense teams waived voir dire and the court accepted Yao as an expert in crime scene analysis and bullet-path documentation. He stated plainly that standard trajectory analysis requires two fixed points and that only a partial window hole was available here, so his opinion rested on stated assumptions: the victim seated upright, the car door closed, and the shooter using a normal standing stance near the door. The observable fact he identified as driving the conclusion was the slight downward declination of the path through Markel — right to left, front to back, slightly downward — which he said a shorter shooter would not produce. He acknowledged he had not seen the medical examiner's report or learned the door-closed status before his first deposition, meaning the developed opinion post-dated that deposition, and testified that the additional review was self-initiated.

Zangeneh's cross concentrated on the single-fixed-point limitation and the unverified inputs. Yao agreed the 49-inch hole alone supports only a five-to-six-foot range with no basis to favor either end, that he could not verify the seated posture, closed door, or trained stance from the physical evidence, that he had not seen a sketch of Markel's position, and that he had not factored the vehicle's seat height into the geometry. He ultimately agreed that a formal trajectory analysis could not be performed from the scene evidence alone. Christopher DeCoste's shorter cross for Magbanua covered the same structure, walking through the two-fixed-points requirement and securing Yao's acknowledgment that, with hard physical evidence missing and the analysis assumption-dependent, he could not state the taller-shooter conclusion with one-hundred-percent certainty; evidence "fitting" a taller shooter, he agreed, is not absolute certainty. The concessions were given directly rather than resisted.

On brief redirect, Georgia Cappleman closed the gap between Yao's in-court demonstration and his deposition language by confirming that fully extended and slightly bent arms both fall within the normal stance he assumed, leaving the height opinion unchanged. She then elicited that the sideways "gangster-style" hold raised on cross decreases bullet accuracy, immediately followed by confirmation that Markel was shot between the eyes. Yao was kept under the rule of sequestration at the State's request, Zangeneh declined to request recall, and no juror questions were taken. The opinion's function in the case was as the State's physical-evidence basis for distinguishing which of the two men at the scene fired the shot, tying trajectory to the identity element of the first-degree murder charge.

Yao's name recurred in the record after he stepped down. On a later day, defense counsel raised a sequestration issue, describing an officer approaching the prosecutors with a piece of paper during Yao's testimony and moving to strike; the objections were ruled on and expressly preserved, with the court noting that any disagreement would be resolved on appeal. He was also referenced during examination of another witness about pre-trial communications and about whether he had reviewed the photographs and report at the time of an office visit roughly two weeks earlier.