Police blotter: Computer logs as alibi in wife's death

What: Douglas Plude, convicted of his wife's murder, says computer logs provide an alibi. Plude, who lived in Wisconsin, claims his expert had insufficient time before trial to review them.

When: Wisconsin Court of Appeals rules on March 6.

Outcome: Conviction upheld and no new trial granted.

What happened, according to court documents:

Douglas Plude says he found his wife Genell slumped over a toilet bowl on October 22, 1999. Genell was not breathing so he attempted CPR while yelling to wake his mother in the other room, Plude says. They were staying at his mother's home.

Genell, 28, was eventually declared dead at 6:50 a.m. thanks to a fatal dose of Fioricet-codeine, a drug used to treat headaches, in her system. Police theorize that Plude killed his wife by poisoning her with the drug and, while she was vomiting, shoving her face into the toilet to drown her. For his part, Plude insists his wife's death was a suicide.

During the trial, there was conflicting evidence about Genell's cause of death. The prosecution's expert thought the fluid in Genell's lungs was more likely than not a mixture of water and vomit from the toilet. The defense expert said that fluid in Genell's lungs was pulmonary edema, caused when the Fioricet slowed her heart and reduced her blood circulation.

What makes this case relevant to "Police blotter" is that the family had two computers, a Compaq and a Packard Bell.

On the night of October 21, shortly before Genell died, both computers were active around 10 p.m. Genell's computer shows the user conducted online searches for information on Fioricet. Plude's computer shows Internet activity and use of a photo editing program between 10 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.

Plude claims that parallel activity indicates that Genell was looking up information about Fioricet, buttressing the conclusion of suicide. He also says that Wisconsin police had seized the hard drives in 1999 but unreasonably dragged their feet in handing over the evidence until 2002, just a few weeks before his trial began. (This isn't the only time that computer evidence has become an alibi; it appeared in a Texas case last year.)