Scientific investigations personnel assigned to the Dodger Stadium beating case will continue working with samples of blood from recovered clothing in the hope of identifying the blood as that of victim Bryan Stow, NBC LA has learned.
Timeline: Bryan Stow Case
As NBC LA reported first last Friday, Los Angeles Police recovered a bloodied Dodgers jersey from a cleaning establishment. Since then, a source close to the investigation also has revealed there was a corresponding pair of trousers.
Investigators suspect the blood is from beating victim Bryan Stow. But Friday's report of a DNA match was premature. The samples have not been positively identified.
The challenge is that the bloodied clothing had, in fact, been cleaned before authorities were notified. The samples of blood were described as so "degraded" that analysis has yet to find sufficient markers to establish a certain identification, according to a second source. Both sources want not to be identified because LAPD Chief Charlie Beck has directed that specific evidence in the case not be disclosed to the public while it is still under investigation.
Police launched an intensive investigation of the attack, which occurred near the taxi stand outside Dodger Stadium shortly after the last out of the March 31 season opening game. Stow, an off-duty paramedic and Giants fan who had traveled from the Bay Area to see the game, was beaten into unconsciousness and remains hospitalized in critical condition. The attack has received nationwide attention, and sent repercussions across Major League Baseball.
Witnesses described two male assailants and a female driver of a getaway car. In seeking public help to identify the suspects, police early on revealed that Suspect #1 and the getaway driver both were wearing Dodgers jerseys.
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On March 22, Chief Beck announced that police had arrested Giovanni Ramirez, 31, a parolee living in East Hollywood. Beck said investigators believe Ramirez to be Suspect #1, the primary assailant.
Ramirez has remained jailed for an alleged parole violation, but authorities have yet to file charges against him for the Stow beating. Since the Ramirez arrest, his attorneys have asserted he has an ironclad alibi: that he was not at the Stadium, but instead at his aunt's apartment on Clinton Street with his 9-year-old daughter, his girlfriend, and other friends and family members.
Defense attorneys have further said Ramirez's hair was grown out at the time, and not shaved as depicted in the suspect likeness released by police.
"We believe 100% in his innocence," said attorney Anthony Brooklier, who is representing Ramirez along with Jose Romero and David Arredondo.
Not known to NBC LA's sources is whose bloodied jersey investigators suspect it is. One source is informed that investigators believe it was Ramirez who took the clothing to the cleaning establishment.
However, when asked to verify this, a police official said only that it is not Ramirez's.
"My client does not go to dry cleaners," said Brooklier.
Ramirez has gone before a suspect line-up and submitted to two of the polygraph, or so-called lie detector, exams. Neither police nor the defense attorneys have disclosed the results.
Ramirez faces a parole hearing Friday. If he's found in violation, he could be sent back to prison. If the charge is not upheld, authorities will need to file charges in the beating case, or another, to keep Ramirez in custody. He has been implicated in a shooting in Henderson, Nevada, outside Las Vegas last January. Henderson police have said the investigation is open and declined to reveal if they intend to arrest Ramirez in that case.
In the Stadium beating case, Suspect #2 and the getaway driver have yet to be identified to the public, and no arrests have been reported.
