The jury in the Dennis Oland murder trial has been given photos, sketches and measurements, all describing the horrific injuries suffered by Richard Oland.
The cause of Richard Oland's death is now on record, but a pathologist who conducted the autopsy could not answer other questions.
To date, many witnesses in Dennis Oland’s second-degree murder trial have described a gruesome, bloody murder scene where the victim's body was found.
Friday morning, Dr. Ather Naseemuddin offered the jury a precise, and concise, cause of Richard Oland's death: "multiple sharp and blunt force injuries to the head."
During the autopsy, the pathologist found evidence of 45 separate blows and 14 distinct skull fractures.
In his opinion, “these injuries would have been rapidly fatal…maybe 10 minutes, maybe five minutes.”
And even if medical care was immediately available, the pathologist said the injuries are “not survivable.”
There were other injuries on the victim’s hands, wounds that were described as "defensive" in nature.
“In the early part of the assault, the victim was able to defend himself … but then there are so many injuries that are terribly incapacitating,” Dr. Naseemuddin said in court.
There were a number of questions that the pathologist could not answer. He was not able to estimate the time of Oland’s death, and he was not able to say if the killer was leftor right-handed. He was also unable to identify a possible murder weapon.
The murder weapon has never been found.
The jury was told today that Oland was killed by blows from both a sharp edge and a round, blunt edge with a textured surface. The pathologist agreed that it could have been a single weapon with both sharp and blunt features, or two separate weapons.
Blood and bodily fluids were also tested after the autopsy, but the pathologist testified that there was nothing in the results that would have contributed to Richard Oland's death.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Mike Cameron
