William Kornegay

Called by the State during a single direct examination on day one, Kornegay identified himself on the record as a forensic specialist with the City of Tallahassee with 24 years at the department. He described arriving at the Trescott Drive scene around noon on July 18, 2014, near the end of the ongoing forensic examination, to assist Joanne Maltese in processing the vehicle in the garage for latent fingerprints and to conduct an eye search of the surrounding area.

His account of the scene work produced two negative results: no usable latent fingerprints from the vehicle, and no shell casings located anywhere in the yard, driveway, or garage. Asked why casings might be absent, he gave two explanations — that a revolver retains its casings until they are manually ejected, and that a semi-automatic can malfunction and fail to eject. Cappleman then offered a third possibility, that someone could have picked the casings up, and Kornegay confirmed all three as consistent with what he found.

He also testified that he attended Markel's autopsy and received two bullet projectiles removed from the body by Dr. Clark. Those items were admitted into evidence as Exhibits 167 and 168 without objection from either defense team. Neither Garcia's nor Magbanua's counsel conducted cross-examination, so his testimony closed after direct with no impeachment topic, bias inquiry, or contradiction raised on the record.

His name recurred later in the trial through another witness's testimony describing the autopsy, where he and Investigator Scott Cherry were identified as the investigators present who discussed the wound trajectories through the body so that the report reader would have that information.