Doctor has other ideas on Samsudean’s demise
A forensic medical consultant who studied the autopsy of a woman killed in a downtown Orlando apartment complex in 2015 said trauma to the neck — not manual strangulation — may have caused her death.
Sasha Samsudean, 27, was found dead in her bed in her third-floor apartment at the Uptown Place Apartments two years ago. Orlando Police arrested a security guard, Stephen Duxbury, 35, who was on duty when she came home the night before police found her.
Duxbury faces a first-degree murder charge. The case is scheduled to go to trial Nov. 13, and the consultant’s deposition, conducted in early October, was filed with the clerk of courts Friday. The state’s medical examiner ruled that Samsudean’s death was caused by strangulation. Dr. William Robert Anderson said that while he agreed that trauma resulting from pressure to her throat caused her death, there were signs that did not fit what he called “classic manual strangulation.”
“I think her death was resulted from infliction of trauma by another person,” he said. “… And, therefore, it would either be considered a homicide or an accident, depending upon — but since it was a death inflicted by another, I would tend to call it some degree of a homicide, negligent, whatever.”
Duxbury’s thumbprint and shoe print were found in the apartment.
Samsudean graduated from Seminole High School and worked for Pearson, an education company providing services to teachers and students.