Columbia County Circuit Court Judge Alan White reduced cash bail from $750,000 to $450,000 for murder suspect Curtis Forbes at a hearing Friday.
Curtis Forbes made his first in-person appearance in a courtroom Friday as a dozen of his supporters along with 20 of Marilyn McIntyre's friends and family filled the bench seating.
Forbes, 51, of rural Randolph, is accused in the March 11, 1980, stabbing murder of McIntyre, 18, a family friend.
Defense attorney Robert A. Christensen of Madison started trying to punch holes in the evidence against Forbes on Friday, hinting at a possible future defense strategy.
Columbia County Circuit Court Judge Alan White reduced Forbes' cash bail to $450,000 from $750,000 at the motion hearing, but Christensen said he still is unlikely to be able to pay it.
White never specifically spelled out his reasoning for the change. He did say a high cash bail is necessary when a defendant faces the possibility of life in prison, because the defendant would have a very strong incentive to flee unless bail would represent a "tremendous loss to his family" if violated.
Forbes was arrested in March by Columbia County Sheriff's Department detectives and charged with first-degree murder after prosecutors said DNA evidence connected him to McIntyre's death.
He faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison if he is found guilty.
Authorities said McIntyre was killed during the early morning hours of March 11, 1980, at her apartment in Columbus as her husband, Lane McIntyre, was at work. An autopsy report said she was bludgeoned, strangled and stabbed.
In his arguments for reducing bail, Christensen requested it be $10,000 or $20,000, or changed to a signature bond, because his client has no criminal history and has strong local ties and a family.
He also questioned the strength of evidence in the criminal complaint filed in March.
The evidence listed in the complaint is misrepresenting and misleading because of what is and is not included, Christensen said at the hearing.
Christensen questioned evidence that he asserts only tenuously connects Forbes to the murder scene, if at all, including:
• McIntyre's time of death: an estimation in the autopsy report places it in the early morning hours but sets no exact time.
"We don't know when she died," Christensen said. "It says 'probably a.m.'"
Forbes has alibis for 11 p.m. March 10, and 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. March 11, he said.
• A possible murder weapon, a sawed off boat oar, was tested in August 1981 by the state crime lab, but lacked specific scientific evidence such as blood, hair or fibers, to connect it with the scene, Christensen said.
• The sweater Forbes wore that night also was examined by authorities in March 1980 and returned several weeks later, Christensen said.
"You'd think there'd be something" such as blood or fiber, given the violence of the murder, he said. "If it had any evidentiary value whatsoever, they wouldn't have returned it."
• The pickup truck Forbes drove that night was searched two days later, but there is no report of evidence connecting it to the scene of the crime, Christensen said.
• DNA evidence from the scene and tested years after - such methods did not exist in 1980 - identify Forbes as a one in 98 chance of matching, a figure so low that it is "essentially meaningless," Christensen said. Typically, DNA evidence used in court cases lists match probabilities that are much higher.
"It usually is in the millions," he said after the hearing. "I don't think I've ever seen a one in 98 until this case."
In requesting a lower bail, Christensen also said that it is more difficult to prepare a defense in a case in which the suspect is in jail, where all phone calls and visits with family and friends are recorded.
While defense attorneys are granted face-to-face access with their clients at the jail, such consultations must be arranged ahead of time; with Forbes in jail in Columbia County, Christensen simply has less access to his client, he said.
Assistant Attorney General David Wambach, who specializes in cold cases, appeared with Assistant District Attorney Crystal Long and argued for White to maintain the high cash bail for Forbes.
Citing state statutes, Wambach said at the hearing that the $750,000 cash bail was "reasonable and appropriate under the law."
In 1980, McIntyre's husband, Lane McIntyre, then 23, told police he found his wife's body upon returning home at about 7 a.m. from his third-shift factory job at Mosinee Paper.
The coroner's report from 1980 said McIntyre had been "knocked around savagely." It described her as having been beaten with a blunt object, strangled and stabbed with a small knife left stuck in her chest. The report also said there was evidence of "sexual trauma."
A preliminary hearing, which could last up to three days, has been slated for the middle of July, although the dates have not been set.