Court told of post mortem by doctor on mum’s body

A TAYSIDE mum-of-three died due to blunt force trauma to her head, a murder trial heard.

Kimberley MacKenzie, 37, is said to have been killed at a flat on Montrose’s Market Street on October 27 last year.

Steven Jackson, 40, and Michelle Higgins, 29, are accused of striking Miss MacKenzie with a hammer, machete and knife.

Dr Marjorie Turner, 54, a consultant forensic pathologist, told the High Court in Glasgow that after conducting a post mortem on Miss MacKenzie her conclusion was that death was caused by blunt force trauma.

But the court also heard that Dr Turner also found at least 40 stab wounds on M i s s MacKenzie’s body — including 25 in the chest, two on her back and more than 10 elsewhere.

The wound on the left side of the victim’s neck had no bleeding or bruising, with the typical appearance “of it having happened after she was dead when there was no blood circulating through her body”, according to Dr Turner.

The pathologist said the wound clearly happened “after death” and would have been due to the process of dismembering the head.

The right side of Miss MacKenzie’s neck, however, had lots of bruising and bleeding which Dr Turner said happened “in life”. Advocate depute Ashley Edwards QC asked if this could account for previous evidence which suggested someone “finishing off” Miss MacKenzie by slitting her throat and Dr Turner agreed it could. She said: “A stab wound might have played a part. That has happened in life, which may have resulted in bleeding that could have been contributory to death, but I have no conclusive evidence of that.” Dr Turner said part of the reason she couldn’t be sure was that an initial post mortem had already been conducted by someone else before she had access to the body. That meant she wasn’t able to track where the two stab wounds went, how deep they were and if they could have severed a vital artery. Jackson, of Market Street, and Higgins, of Lower Craigo Street, both Montrose, deny murdering Miss Mackenzie and dismembering her body. They also deny putting her head and other body parts inside a rucksack and a case, and concealing them in a shower cubicle. Jackson also denies drugs offences and having a machete in a public place, while Higgins denies having a knife in Montrose High Street. The trial continues.