Day Seven - Autopsy Details

Dr. Frank Sheridan/The Southern California Medical Museum

The third week of trial started off on a grim note, with Dr. Frank Sheridan called to the stand as the first witness of the day. Sheridan is the Chief Medical Examiner with the San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner Department. He is also the forensic pathologist who conducted Erin Corwin's autopsy.

Sheridan's lilting Irish brogue was quite the juxtaposition to the horrors about which he had to testify. I'm going to leave out some of the more disturbing details, because they don't add anything to the most newsworthy aspects of Sheridan's testimony, and there are other "real" news sources that I'd imagine will contain that information. But here's what I felt were the most important parts of Sheridan's testimony:

• Upon external examination of Erin's body, Sheridan found a garrote looped around her neck and partially entangled in her hair.
• Erin's skull sustained numerous fractures, with all but one suffered after death. However, Sheridan testified one fracture above and behind Erin's left ear appeared to be the result of blunt force trauma from being hit with a heavy object either while she was still alive, or very shortly after brain death.
• Erin also suffered postmortem fractures to her left clavicle and left first rib.
• Sheridan examined Erin for any signs of pregnancy. He said the severe decomposition of Erin's body hindered his ability to ascertain if she was pregnant at the time of her death.
• Sheridan said the cause of death was homicidal violence due to strangulation and possible blunt force head injury.

Dr. Sheridan made it a point to say that Erin was strangled to death, but not choked. When a person is choked, their airways are cut off, they cannot breathe, and this leads to eventual death. In Erin's case, according to Dr. Sheridan, Erin was strangled with the garrote. This cut off the blood flow to her brain via the carotid arteries and jugular vein in her neck. Sheridan believes she would have lost consciousness with twenty seconds of the beginning of the strangulation, and suffered brain death within four minutes.

On cross-examination, defense attorney David Kaloyanides pressed Sheridan on whether Erin could have been strangled as much as a day before she suffered the skull fractures and other broken bones. Sheridan it was possible.

I'll post later on this evening about what happened the rest of the day in court - the viewing of the videotaped police interrogation of Christopher Lee.