CHIN, J.
***47 Glen Niemy, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant.
Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Assistant Attorney General, Glenn R. Pruden, Donna M. Provenzano and J. Michael Chamberlain, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Opinion
CHIN, J.
**524
A jury convicted defendant of the first degree murder of Cannie Bullock and found true the special circumstance allegations of murder while committing rape and murder while committing a lewd and lascivious act on a child under the age of 14. (Pen.Code, §§ 187, 190.2, subd. (a) (17)(C) and (E).) After a penalty trial, the jury returned a verdict of death. The court denied the automatic motion to modify the verdict (§ 190.4) and imposed that sentence. This appeal is automatic. (§ 1239, subd. (b).) We affirm the judgment.
I. The Facts
A. Guilt Phase
1. Overview
In 1979, eight-year-old Cannie Bullock's strangled and sexually abused body was ***48 found in the backyard of her home. Although investigators suspected a neighbor, William Flores, might have committed the crime, Flores was not charged, and the case was unsolved. A few years later, Flores committed suicide. In 1996, Flores's body was exhumed. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) from his body was compared to evidence samples from the victim's body using recently developed methods of DNA analysis. The body's DNA did not match DNA from the evidence samples, and the case remained unsolved.
Finally, in 2002, a “cold hit” connected defendant, then living in Colorado, with the crime. Further testing established that sperm and semen found in the victim's body had come from defendant, and investigation revealed that,
around the time of the crime, he had lived near the victim's home and had a sexual relationship with her mother. He was charged with the child's murder.
**525 At trial, defendant did not dispute that the sperm and semen in the body had come from him, but he proffered an innocent explanation for this circumstance, namely, that semen from sexual intercourse he had with the mother had transferred onto the child. He contended Flores committed the crime.
2. Prosecution Evidence
In August 1979, Cannie Bullock (Cannie) lived in a small house on Dover Street in San Pablo with her mother, Linda Bullock (Linda). The house had one bedroom and a sofa bed in the front room. Linda's friend, Debbie Fisher, was also staying in the house.