3/7/2008 10:50:00 AM 'Repeated blows' to accused murderer's face Doctor testifies that defendant suffered facial injuries consistent with a beating
Accused ‘was abused’: Dr. Brenda Davidson said yesterday at the trial of Andrina Tamara Smith that injuries on the defendant’s face were, in her opinion, likely the result of ‘repeated blows’.
Repeated blows probably caused the visible facial injuries to a woman on trial for murdering her boyfriend, a doctor said yesterday.
"In my opinion," Dr. Brenda Davidson told the Supreme Court, "It was likely more than one blow to the head." The Senior Medical Officer examined Andrina Tamara Smith, 26, on the evening of Oct. 16, 2006 following her arrest for allegedly stabbing to death Edward Allan Dill early that morning.
The Crown says that she stabbed Mr. Dill in the neck with a kitchen knife through a bedroom door at her apartment in Cedar Park, Devonshire.
The pair had allegedly been arguing, and Mr. Dill had slapped Miss Smith in the face. Mother-of-two Miss Smith, who has a one-year-old daughter by Mr. Dill, denies murder.
Eyewitnesses have given graphic evidence of blood spurting from Mr. Dill's neck as he slumped to the ground outside the apartment. The accused continued to pummel Mr. Dill with her fists as he bled to death, eyewitnesses have said.
According to them, several police officers had to forcibly restrain Miss Smith as she fought them to the ground. "He beat me. He beat me. I just couldn't take it any more," witnesses have quoted her as saying.
Early in the trial, Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves told the jury to expect to hear of a history of violence between the couple. Yesterday, Dr. Davidson detailed to the court seven areas of injury to Miss Smith's face, neck, chest and leg that included bruising, swelling and bleeding. "There were several recent injuries attributable to having been struck," she said.
Those injuries included a half-centimetre abrasion to the left side of the defendant's face; bruising and swelling to her left eye with discolouration to both eyelids; bleeding from a blood vessel in the left into the white of the eyeball; bruising and swelling to her left cheek with tenderness to the jaw; discolouration and a little swelling to her right eye; and some bruising and tenderness to her forehead.
Miss Smith also experienced stiffness to her neck, a mark to her chest and an abrasion to her left leg. The doctor agreed with Senior Crown Counsel Carrington Mahoney that the abrasions were consistent with a struggle on an asphalt surface and that the facial injuries could have been caused by a single slap.
However, she said that a struggle on the ground wouldn't explain the injuries to the hollow areas of the eye. Under cross-examination by defence lawyer Charles Richardson, though, Dr. Davidson said that the eye injuries were also consistent with a punch by a fist.
Agreeing that the total facial injuries were unlikely from one slap, she explained: "They're more likely from one or more blows to the face."
Earlier in the trial, a forensic pathologist said that the two-centimetre long wound to Mr. Dill's neck severed the carotid artery and would have produced rapid death. Photos of the scene show large quantities of blood in and around the apartment.
Other evidence from the crime scene was introduced yesterday, including the door with several knife-shaped holes visible in it.
A private crime scene analyst from Pensacola, Florida painstakingly began the presentation of objects she took from the defendant's apartment two days after Mr. Dill's death.
They included wooden chips from the floor right outside the bedroom, a screwdriver wedged in the door lock, and the door itself.
Janice Johnson introduced her evidence by outlining her nearly 41 years in forensic work, including 30 for the State of Florida in bloodstain pattern analysis. "Blood stain patterns," she said, "are extremely instrumental in reconstructing events of a violent crime."
She described a range of patterns from blood hitting surfaces at high, medium and low velocities and their characteristics afterwards.
She also described the cast-off patterns caused when blood is flung off moving objects, such as knives; and projected patterns, caused when blood has spurted or gushed out of a person's mouth or nose and is propelled forward at great speed.
