The attorney for a woman sentenced to 55 years in prison for a brutal Down East murder is appealing the conviction to Maine’s highest court, saying the state relied on faulty forensic testimony from a podiatrist.
A jury found Kailie Brackett, now 41, guilty of murder in December 2023 for the death of 43-year-old Kimberly Neputune, on April 21, 2022. Brackett appealed her conviction to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, which will hear arguments Wednesday from her attorneys and the Office of the Maine Attorney General, which prosecuted the case.
Neputune was found inside her Thunder Road home in Pleasant Point. She had been stabbed and cut nearly 500 times on her legs, stomach, neck and head.
Ahead of the hearing Brackett’s attorney, Michelle King, filed a 65-page brief, arguing Brackett was wrongfully convicted and the trial judge should not have allowed a forensic podiatrist to testify about sock-clad footprint evidence, calling it “junk science.” King also says six pictures of Neptune’s body and stab wounds unfairly prejudiced the jury and the prosecution misstated evidence during closing arguments.
“This case must be examined closely to make sure Kailie is not added to a list of ‘junk science’ convictions,” King said.
The AG’s office refuted the assertions in a 45-page filing, saying the footprint analysis followed “accepted scientific principles,” and the photos were necessary for the medical examiner’s testimony.
The state called Dr. Michael Nirenberg, a podiatrist in Indiana, to testify. He said there was a “moderate level of support,” that Brackett left the footprints at the scene of the murder. Nirenberg compared photographs of bloody footprints to sock-clad footprints of Brackett once she was in police custody.
Nirenberg’s analysis did not take the sock cloth and thickness into consideration and did not include Brackett’s weight at the time of the murder and when she was foot printed in custody, which could cause variations in the footprint, King said.
“In terms of scientific basis, forensic podiatry is, at best, a fringe scientific discipline,” King said in the filing.
King points out that forensic podiatry is not accepted by the Organization of Scientific Area Committees for Forensic Science and the International Association for Identification, which says on its website that it promotes high quality and technically sound standards.
However, prosecutors said the doctor’s comparison followed the principles of forensic podiatry and forensic comparison, the AG’s office said.
Whether the science is accepted by the scientific community at large, doesn’t make a difference if the judge allows the witness and evidence, the AG’s office said.
There is limited demand for forensic podiatry, but it is accepted by a wide array of organizations, the office said.
Along with King’s objections to using podiatry, she said showing the jury six autopsy photographs was “unfairly prejudicial” to Brackett because there was no dispute that the murder was committed with depraved indifference. The photographs caused jurors to act on emotion, not evidence, she said.
The supreme court should find the trial judge should have not admitted the images, King said.
“The prosecution admitted not one or two, but six gruesome photographs of [Neptune’s] corpse showing hundreds of deep, bloody, tissue-exposed stab wounds, all showing essentially the same portion of [Neptune’s] corpse but from different angles,” King said.
The AG countered by saying autopsy-like pictures have repeatedly been allowed by the supreme court.
“Court’s need not go so far to hide the truth of events from juries simply because the defendant alleges prejudice,” the AG’s office said.
The court did not error in any decisions, the office said.
Even if the supreme court does not accept the argument that Brackett was wrongfully convicted, she should be resentenced, King said. She said the lower court did not consider mitigating factors and sentencing goals.
Arguments happen at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Cumberland County Courthouse in Portland.
A trial against the second person charged Neputune’s death, Donnell Dana, 39, of Perry, ended in a mistrial when the jury failed to reach a verdict against him for murder. He reached a plea deal with prosecutors in January under which he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor hindering apprehension.