Fatal gunshot victim shot at close range

Tessier murder trial hears how Berdahl, a man found dead in 2007, was killed

Two of five bullet wounds suffered by fatal gunshot victim Allan Berdahl were fired from “contact or near contact” range, a pathologist testified Thursday.

Former Calgary medical examiner Dr. Sam Andrews conducted the autopsy on Berdahl’s corpse, shortly after it was discovered in a snowy ditch north of the city on March 16, 2007.

Andrews told a three-woman, nine-man jury he found evidence of five wounds, two of which would have caused certain death.

Andrews testified one bullet grazed the victim’s forehead, two went right through his head and two others entered his brain.

“None of the injuries had any evidence of healing,” he said, indicating they all occurred around the time of death.

But he told defence lawyer Pawel Milczarek he could not say how many seconds, or even minutes, may have separated each shot.

The two contact or near contact injuries were to the right side of the deceased’s forehead, while two others entered his right cheek and ear before exiting the other side of his head, Andrews said.

“The two wounds where the bullets entered and passed through the brain, those were the more rapidly fatal injuries,” he said.

“The gunshot wound of the right cheek and of the right ear are survivable gunshot wounds, but untreated they can also cause death, just not as quickly.”

Charged with first-degree murder in Berdahl’s killing is Calgarian Russell Steven Tessier.

Tessier, who is free on bail, was arrested in December 2015.

Andrews said while he is not an expert in ballistics, it appeared the bullets he recovered at autopsy were “approximately a .22-calibre handgun-type ammunition,” he told Milczarek.

Court earlier heard Tessier, 51, went to the Shooting Edge on March 14, 2007, to pick up a handgun he’d left there on consignment.

While the owner of the shop described the gun as a .22 revolver, the clerk who returned it to Tessier said it was a .38.