Scanlon murder trial

Blood spatter evidence presented

Blood stains in the basement of Jessica Scanlon’s home suggest a person suffered multiple blows by a blunt object, a blood spatter expert told a jury Friday.

“There was more than one blow responsible for this type of pattern,” Sgt. Perry Lee told a six-man, six-woman jury in the murder trial against Jeremy Gough.

Scanlon, 29, was found dead in the basement of her St. Catharines home on Feb. 23, 2015.

Her former common-law spouse, Jeremy Gough, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of first-degree murder in a Superior Court of Justice in St. Catharines.

Court heard earlier Scanlon was struck in the head multiple times and was stabbed 24 times.

In court Friday, Lee described in detail dozens of photographs that police took in the days following the murder.

Lee testified the blood evidence in the basement hallway indicates a person was on their hands and knees at time of a “blood letting event” that consisted of at least five blows.

In the entry to the laundry room, court heard, the pattern suggests the person was laying face down.

Based on the large amount of blood on the floor at the laundry room entrance, he said blood had been “accumulating in that area for a length of time.”

He said the pattern indicates there were at least five blows to a “source of liquid blood.”

Blood spatter was found on the door frame to the laundry room as well on the walls and the ceiling.

Blood drops found on the stairs leading to the basement, Lee added, suggest a person was on the stairs holding something in his right hand that was dripping blood.

The Crown contends that Gough entered the Chetwood Street home of his former girlfriend after she left to take their two young children to school and then attacked her upon her return.

Scanlon had ended her 10-year relationship with the defendant about a month before she died.

The trial resumes Monday.