Robbery Case Might Hinge on Saliva

Prosecutors Say Dye Pack Caused Suspect to Spit on Getaway Car

In a small La Plata courtroom yesterday, spit took center stage.

No longer was it the disgusting byproduct of a tobacco chewer, deposited on the ground or a baseball field.

At the Charles County Circuit Court, spit was the linchpin of a high-profile bank robbery case. Nicholas A. Goolsby, 27, of Landover faces charges that include armed robbery and first-degree assault.

How spit flew from Goolsby's mouth directly into the spotlight is a story that might have been made for the TV show "CSI: Miami." Here is a brief synopsis, according to charging documents, opening statements and witness testimony from the first day of Goolsby's trial.

May 7, 2007: Three men, all masked and armed, walk into a Wachovia Bank in Waldorf. One fires a shot and jumps over the teller counter. One patrols the lobby, where customers and employees are ordered onto the ground. A third guards the door, apparently keeping track of the time.

One of the men orders a bank teller to come with him and empty her drawer. One of the men also demands to see the bank manager so that she can open the vault. She does not have the key. A customer approaches from outside, sees what is happening and runs off. The man guarding the door yells that it is time to leave.

The men flee with more than $11,000, but their getaway is not flawless. A dye pack inside the stolen money explodes in their van, and they ditch one bag of cash. Multiple witnesses are able to identify the blue van and its license plate number. A few hours later, police find the van, which had been reported stolen before the incident, abandoned in a nearby neighborhood. On its passenger door is a stream of spit and the remnants of the dye pack.

Police take a DNA sample from the spit, which they later connect to another sample from Goolsby in a federal database. Goolsby, who also spells his first name "Nicolas," is the only person who has been charged in the case.

"He got hit with the dye pack. It caused him to spit into that getaway car," assistant state's attorney Blayne Miley told jurors in his opening statement, noting that the dye pack also emits tear gas, which might have caused Goolsby to spit or drool. "The defendant may have gotten away that day, but he left behind the evidence for you to find him guilty."

Goolsby's attorney, William Renahan, acknowledged that the case will come down to saliva. But the prosecution's case is not airtight, he said.

"Wow. That was 'CSI: Miami,' " Renahan said after hearing Miley's opening argument. "But this is not Miami. This is La Plata."

No witnesses have identified Goolsby as being at the bank, and there is no physical evidence to connect him directly to the scene, Renahan said.

"The only evidence you have is saliva away from the bank itself," he said. "He's not charged with spitting in public."

Additionally, Renahan said in a previous interview, Goolsby's DNA should never have been in the federal database. The sample was taken from him in 1994, he said, when he was facing a handgun charge in Washington. That charge, Renahan said, was not serious enough to merit his DNA being taken and entered into the database, and the DNA sample was removed after officials found it existed, he said.

Still, the match was enough for investigators to get a search warrant for another DNA sample from Goolsby, a sample that matched the spit. And a judge rejected Renahan's motion to suppress all of the DNA, deciding that because Goolsby was convicted of robbery in Washington last year, his sample would have eventually wound up in the database, Renahan said.

Testimony in the case resumes today.