After Dennis Wolter was found covered in blood on May 26, 2011, he maintained during a nearly two-hour interrogation at the Camas Police Station that the blood belonged to his injured black Lab dog, Charlie.
Meanwhile, at Wolter’s home in Vancouver, police were discovering a harsher reality.
The blood belonged to Wolter’s girlfriend, Kori Fredericksen, whom Wolter murdered with a knife to prevent her from testifying against him in a previous domestic violence case, said Clark County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Camara Banfield.
In the second day of testimony Thursday in Wolter’s aggravated murder trial, Vancouver police officers described the scene at the home.
Vancouver police officers responded to the home around 1:30 a.m. after Camas police requested a welfare check on Fredericksen and her 8-year-old son. They found a trail of blood from the driveway to the house’s entryway.
“There were drag marks,” said Vancouver police Officer Jason Beach. “There were pools of blood sporadically along the blood trail.”
Halfway along the bloody trail lay a black sweater riddled with holes, Beach said. Blood was smeared on the doorknob, said Officer Gerardo Gutierrez.
The officers knocked on the door. After no answer, Gutierrez and Officer Donald Magarian said they kicked down the door.
Inside, there was blood on the walls and carpet and a broken knife blade on the living room floor, Beach said. Five bloody knives with bent or broken knives were in the kitchen sink, he said.
Gutierrez said he listened for “signs of life,” but the house was silent.
Just 10 days earlier, Wolter’s house had been so noisy with conflict that neighbors had summoned police. Gutierrez and Magarian responded on that day, May 17, 2011, and arrested Wolter on suspicion of malicious mischief for breaking Fredericksen’s china hutch and a fourth-degree assault against her. Magarian testified that Wolter said he had confronted Fredericksen over infidelity, and during a dispute, she slapped him on the back of the head. Fredericksen sustained a 1/4-inch cut on her finger during the conflict, Magarian said. He said Fredericksen was relieved when he called to tell her that Wolter was in jail. A day after his arrest, a judge ordered Wolter not to have any contact with Fredericksen.
On Wednesday, Camas police Officer Stefan Hausinger testified he pulled Wolter over early May 26, 2011, for speeding on Southeast Evergreen Highway and found the suspect covered in blood. Wolter told Hausinger the blood came from his dog who was struck by a car during a game of fetch. He claimed the dog later died at a veterinarian’s office, Hausinger said.
Inside the pickup, the officer found the domestic violence no-contact order on Wolter’s seat.
Later that night, Camas police Sgt. Doug Norcross found a bloody tennis shoe on the highway west of where Wolter was pulled over, the sergeant testified Thursday. He found Fredericksen’s body down an embankment, he said.
Around 4 a.m., Vancouver police Detectives John Ringo and Scott Creager interrogated Wolter for 11/2 hours inside the Camas police station.
A video recording played in court Thursday showed Wolter never wavered from his story that the blood that covered him belonged to his dog.
“You are covered in blood. Do you think it’ll be (long before) the lab tells us that it’s human blood,” said one of the detectives in the recording. “If I’m wrong, I’ll buy you the best steak in town.”
“Good. Because I’m hungry,” replied Wolter, unshaken.
“Just for clarification … the blood is dog’s blood … not Kori’s blood,” Wolter said in the recording. “No. I love Kori … I’m being harassed now.”
When the detectives asked to collect DNA from his clothes and skin, he demanded a search warrant. While the detectives were waiting for the warrant, Wolter fell asleep, Ringo noted. He said he knew Wolter was sleeping because he was snoring loudly and had body jerks.
During opening statements, Banfield targeted the sleeping as evidence of Wolter’s lack of remorse for the crime.
Wolter’s attorney, Therese Lavallee, in her opening statement, agreed that her client had stabbed Fredericksen to death but said she would present evidence that he has a diminished mental capacity that affects his ability to form intent.
That’s a legal standard the state has to prove to get a conviction on a premeditated murder charge. It’s different from an insanity defense, which is difficult to successfully argue in Washington state.
Wolter was born with brain damage caused by fetal alcohol exposure, Lavallee said. A traumatic blow to the head when Wolter was 18 caused him to sustain additional brain damage, she said. The damage occurred in an area of the brain that controls emotion, self-control, deciphering information, making decisions and forming judgments, she said.
View a video of the trial on The Columbian’s YouTube Channel.
