Injuries to mom were ‘overkill’
Crown ends case in first-degree murder trial
The Crown’s final witness in the murder trial of Jeremy Gough testified 29-year-old Jessica Scanlon died of severe blood loss due to blunt force and sharp force injuries to her head and back.
While “both injury types could be lethal on their own,” Dr. John Fernandes told the six-man, sixwoman jury he believes the head injuries were inflicted first, followed by 24 stab wounds to the back.
Fernandes, a forensic pathologist with Hamilton Health Sciences, conducted an autopsy on Scanlon on Feb. 24, 2015, the day after the St. Catharines woman was found dead in the basement of her Chetwood Street home.
Gough, her former common-law spouse, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of first-degree murder in Superior Court of Justice in St. Catharines.
In court Tuesday, Fernandes told assistant Crown attorney Jacqueline Strecansky the mother of two had eight to 10 impact sites on her skull and that the lacerations were “severe.” She also sustained significant internal injuries including wounds to her lungs and her aorta had been sliced in two. Also, multiple ribs had been severed in half.
“For bones to be cut clean, it takes a great deal of force,” Fernandes said.
When defence counsel John Lefurgey asked Fernandes if the injuries could have been inflicted by a person “in the grip of emotion, strong emotion,” the physician said it was possible.
“Would this appear to be a loss of control?” Lefurgey asked.
“This is what we call overkill,” Fernandes replied, adding the magnitude of injuries was “over proportionate to what is required to cause death.”
Because the victim had minimal blood inside her chest, the pathologist concluded she suffered the head injuries first and was likely deceased when the majority of the stab wounds were inflicted.
The Crown contends the defendant entered the home of his former girlfriend after she left to take their two children to school and then attacked her upon her return. She had ended her 10-year relationship with Gough about a month before she died.
At the completion of the pathologist’s testimony, the Crown closed its case. The defence is expected to call its first witness today.