Murder trial juror faints as wounds described

A juror fainted in his seat during Michael LeBlanc’s murder trial Friday as a forensic pathologist described in gruesome detail the first of 12 knife wounds on Mohammad Ali Hassan’s neck.

Hassan, the 19-year-old known by the street name “Flex,” was stabbed 23 times in Overbrook’s Lawson Park on Feb. 22, 2016. LeBlanc has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in his death.

Dr. Alfredo Walker, a forensic pathologist with The Ottawa Hospital, was just beginning his testimony about the autopsy he performed the morning after the killing when court was abruptly halted for the apparent medical emergency.

Walker was in the midst of explaining a single-edged blade’s effect on the muscle and sinew on Hassan’s neck, describing in clinical detail the “gaping ” four-centimetre stab wound he found there.

Walker was then pressed into an unexpected court duty, springing from the witness stand to the jury box as the juror rolled backward in his chair and began convulsing.

Other jurors were briefly led out as paramedics were called to assist the man, and Walker eventually resumed his expert testimony with one jury seat empty.

One of the stab wounds, Walker testified, showed the knife was plunged with “severe force” nine centimetres deep into the back of his neck.

The blade severed Hassan’s spinal cord and would have left him instantly paralyzed, Walker said.

The pathologist also explained for the remaining jurors the distinction between the stab wounds and the “slashing” wounds he found across Hassan’s throat.

Hassan had a number of gaping stab wounds to his chest as well. The one that pierced his heart would have been fatal on its own, Walker testified.

The pathologist added that a victim suffering such a grave injury would have mere moments where he could have been “struggling with his assailant or able to run a short distance before he collapses.”

The trial continues.