An expert witness "could not rule out" the use of a pickaroon in some of the injuries one of Cody Alan Legebokoff's alleged victims suffered, the court heard Friday.
Dr. Steven Symes, a forensic anthropologist and expert in examining trauma on bone, said he had initial doubts the tool had enough reach to cause some of the wounds he found on Cynthia Frances Maas during an examination.
But after testing the tool on some balsa wood, Symes said it's possible it could have been the source of a blow to Maas' temple, as well as wounds to her ribs, chest, neck and shoulder blade.
In his opening statement to the jury, given at the trial's start on June 2, Crown prosecutor Joseph Temple submitted that investigators found a pickaroon with Maas' blood on it in Legebokoff's apartment.
He also submitted Maas died from blunt force trauma and penetrating wounds to her chest and the injuries included fractures to two ribs, her collarbone and shoulder blade, all on her right side. Her right and left cheekbones had also been fractured, Temple told the court, as was her lower jaw in two places and two fingers on her right hand. And there was a penetrating wound to a vertebrae in her neck, Temple said.
Legebokoff was arrested the night of Nov. 27, 2010 when an RCMP officer who pulled him over for speeding on Highway 27 between Fort St. James and Vanderhoof, noticed blood on him and in his pickup truck.
A conservation officer who traced Legebokoff's tracks back along the logging road he had been seen hurriedly leaving came across the body of Loren Donn Leslie, who was 15 years old at the time of her death.
That sparked an investigation that led Legebokoff to face first degree murder charges in the deaths of of 35-year-old Maas, whose body was found in L.C. Gunn Park about two months prior to his arrest, Leslie, Jill Stacey Stuchenko, 35, and Natasha Lynn Montgomery, 24.
Stuchenko's body was found in a gravel pit near Foothills and Otway in October 2009 while the body of Montgomery, who went missing in September 2010 shortly after her release from Prince George Regional Correctional Centre, has never been found.
Symes said the wounds to areas on Maas' skull were too large for the tool's pointed end to create, but he also discounted a standard hammer as too large to cause the trauma to that area and noted the pickaroon head also has a rectangular butt end.
A pickaroon is similar to a pickaxe but has only one pointed end whereas a pickaxe has two.
"I would expect some of these blows are quite forceful and so it can't be a very light tool," Symes said. "It has to be a tool that has some mass to it."
Symes, who also conducted an examination on Leslie, qualified most of his answers with words like "probably" and "possible" and under cross-examination from defence lawyer Jim Heller, said the examinations of Maas and Leslie were difficult because blunt trauma wounds on bone are difficult to analyze. Maas' body was also extensively decomposed, the court heard.
Both bodies were examined in Symes' laboratory in Mercyhurst University in Erie, Pennsylvania, following autopsies in Kamloops.
Under cross examination, Symes said Leslie was struck at least five times in the side of her head and suffered blows to her nose, cheek and mouth. It appeared she was also stabbed twice in the neck, Symes said.
RCMP found a pipe wrench and a multitool with blood on it in Legebokoff's truck at the time of he arrest, the court has heard.
As has occurred throughout most of the trial so far, the jury was taken through photographs of the victims following their deaths. While the number of observers in the gallery has dwindled to about a dozen from as many as 30 at the start of the trial, friends and family of Leslie and Montgomery are continuing to attend the proceedings.
The trial, which is expected to last six to eight months, continues Monday at the Prince George courthouse, starting at 9:30 a.m.
