Simone Whyte-Barrington died as a result of massive blood loss due to a laceration to the aorta, based on testimony from the government’s pathologist Dr Lester Simon as the murder trial of Shawn Mussington continued in the High Court yesterday.
Mussington is accused of the November 14, 2020, murder of Whyte-Barrington. The 45-year-old hairdresser was stabbed in the chest with a knife while attending a gathering upstairs the Hitachi Centre building at the corner of Tanner and Market streets.
Dr Simon, who has been employed at the hospital since 1983 and has done thousands of postmortems, recounted performing an autopsy on Whyte-Barrington’s body on November 24.
In addition to the massive blood loss which caused her death, Dr Simon revealed that the external examination of the body revealed an incised wound (cut) to the left upper chest, which was 4×1 cm extending downwards and inwards into the chest, to and through the aorta, which is the main artery that takes blood from the heart to the tissues.
He said this cut was associated with 1,150 mils of blood being in her left chest cavity.
Further examination of Whyte-Barrington’s body, which Dr Simon recounted had several tattoos all over, revealed that she had a slightly enlarged heart.
During yesterday’s court proceedings, two police constables were recalled to the stand to face further cross-examination by defence attorney Wendel Alexander.
Alexander requested that the female investigator be recalled to present her personal diary, where she documented notes pertaining to the investigation.
While the diary was one for 2020, notations about the investigations were made on a page dated February 4, 2020, which the attorney suggested she made over the weekend.
Alexander pointed out that notes were scattered all over the diary and not in any chronological order.
The attorney, a former police officer and former commissioner of police, pointed out that officers normally use an inset sheet for chronological sequence of what is done during the course of investigations.
The constable told the court that there was a case diary in which she transferred notes from her personal diary.
However, she was unable to give a precise reason why she did not bring that diary to court, which she said she reviewed before coming to court to give evidence.
The officer reiterated that she did not inquire of the accused how much alcohol he had consumed that day because she was unaware he was drunk, although witnesses might have mentioned that he had been drinking on the night in question.
The officer who was asked to review video footage of the scene and several other locations reiterated that he knew Mussington for two years, seeing him at least twice a week at Sizzlin’ Slots Casino. He was unable to say the last time that he had seen Mussington before the fatal incident.
The constable admitted though that during this period he never spoke with Mussington. He said, however, that he was able to recognize the accused on video footage because of his body structure and other features.
Asked about his role in the investigation other than reviewing the video surveillance, the officer said on the night of the incident he assisted other officers on the scene with crowd control.
The prosecution is expected to call its final witness today– a police officer– to facilitate the defence to pose questions to her. The officer was scheduled to take the stand yesterday but was unable to do so due to illness.
