Medical examiner in Apple River stabbing case explains autopsy findings

um before I start external examination of the body I just need to tell you that I got body from the hospital he was pronounced that at the hospital he had a medical uh we call artifacts he had a tube inside of his oral cavity just help him to breathe he had two IV lines intravascular axis but uh it was um ins certain is his bones and um he had a multiple surgic impact material saturated was a blood and I observe body on my table it was some blood present on his body and I observe uh Sharon injury to his left chest um did you take photographs during your external examination of Isaac's body yes I did attend to take you know many photographs all right um did you complete internal examination of Isaac's body yes and is that part of the usual autopsy procedure yes you correct um can you summarize the results of your internal examination of Isaac's body sure um as I said I observe most important I observe sharp was injury to his left chest later I classify this wound as a stab wound stab W it's um it's um basically it's a sharp for injury Stab Wound when when it's depth of the wound exceeds the length of the wood on the skin so it was stab W to the left chest the stab W penetrate to his um left chest cavity uh he had a damage called it sharp fory to to his fifth and sixth ribs on the left chest cavity um then wound kind of continues and go to the left long I was able to identify a sharo injury to the lower L of the left lung he had a blood in his last uh left chest cavity I recovered 200 cubic cm it's approximately glass of the blood in his left chest cavity and um he had damaged sharos injury to his pordum pic cordum it's a coverage kind of like sack around his heart and he had a Shar for injury to the apex of the heart Apex it's a pointy part of the heart like the damage uh sharp force injury to the uh left ventricle of the heart and uh he had a condition and I identify this condition on x-ray I performed before autopsy he had a condition called pneumotox pneumotox is present of the um air in the chest cavity so two condition pneumotox air and hemo tox present of the blood and his organs midline organs was kind of shifted to the right it's called deviation to right it's because it's collection of the U air and the left chest cavity was um Isaac Schuman wearing anything else other than this the swim trunks when you received his body no page two can you tell us what that is um page two that's um image of the body taken from the left side so the gentleman that's on my table I took this photographs he covered by uh medical um just basically Hospital type of sheath his uh hands covered by Brown Bags why are his hands covered if you know uh this is part of the requirement uh in cases for suspicious cases we ask law enforcement or medical Personnel cover hands with bag to protect trace evidence because we have to collect trace evidence at the time of zsy so it's part of the standard procedure all right page three what does that show I hope we not the same page uh I believe this is um when I took a bag from his hands this is image of the uh wrist uh left wrist and uh I just document that he had a it's my name tag and it's um Hospital number he was ID by Hospital number and he had a golden colar chain or bracelet on his um left wrist did when when his body came to you did he have that that bracelet on Yes actually I recovered later it was uh because his hands were bagged but he had a bracelet yes that's a uh image of the left chest when I remove his skin from the left chest I observed that he had a Shar was injury to two ribs so two ribs was completely kind of like transected um so weapon went through his rib cage uh just want to show you that it's a damage of a two ribs I make sure I understand you Dr froloff when you say that his ribs were transected what do you mean by that it's a sharpest injury to the ribs and what was the damage to the ribs it's completely cut well I can say cut off how many ribs were completely cut two um and again just to summarize your opinion is um he died du a due to a penetrating stab wound to his left chest correct um in the final report I said exanguination basically bleeding to the desk to the stab onto the left chest you correct um medical examiners even assistant medical examiners there's a is there a board certification process for that position it's some it depends on which field yes okay in your field there's a board certification process sir yes are you board certified I'm a diplomat of American Board of medical legal death investigators are you board certified for as a medical examiner there is no board certification for medical examiners board certification for forensic pathology the um you talked about um manner of death and cause of death is that right yes and I think just so we know again just cause of death is stab wound to the left chest in simple terms correct you are correct yes and then the manner is as you said how that cause came to be agreed yes and that's a medical term correct um it's a forensic forensic term yes a forensic medical term correct sure it's not a legal term correct it's not a legal term no and the cause of death there are essentially you have four options five options no for manner of the death we we have for C of death it's indein you know for manner of death we have limited options yes absolutely so manner of death there's limited options only five uh we have we can choose from the natural death accidental death suicidal Des homicidal des and if I cannot determine I can say it it's undetermined Des you correct okay so there is no determination that you can make that your qualified to do as to whether or not the homicide occurred as a result of self-defense agreed oh I never testified that is self-defense or a issue homicide basically from forensic point of view it's meaning life taken by another person sure and again that's outside of your field whether it's self-defense agreed yes I never testified about self-defense yes okay in this situation you uh examined Isaac schuman's body and part of that was the toxicology is that right yes and you determined that his blood alcohol concentration was 0.219 agreed it's not me it's a lab a lab that you rely on and you in your work correct yes so based upon your relying on that lab you agree his blood alcohol concentration was 219 that's correct and the you're aware that the legal limit for adults permitted to drink alcohol is 08 correct uh in the state of Wisconsin driving legal limit it's 08 you correct so this would be over 2 and a half times the legal limit correct yes all right now you talked about the the wound and you described that agreed yes um the manner in which somebody would receive a stab wound is a dynamic process you agree you're correct yes there would be uh you're not here to tell anybody about the amount of force that was used to cause that wound agreed it's usually hard to determine Force apply in a cases like that yes and part of the reason that it's hard to determine is because the process is so Dynamic correct oh it's not just dynamic it's uh nature of the weapon and so on and so on and at least part of it and I understand there might be more complications part of it is is that it might be one object going into another object it might be two objects moving towards each other correct those are at least two of the possible Dynamics involved if you mean objects it's a humans right correct and I apologize a person and person and uh the knife you're absolutely right I apologize you agree it's a dynamic process yes and so part of that to try to measure if one was try try to think about that Force you'd have to know whether the person who's receiving that wound in what direction they're moving correct it's again it's so many things you need to consider yes you would agree though if the person receiving the wound is moving towards the knife that's going to impact how the injury occurs agreed yes if the person receiving the wound is reaching out that's going to impact the wound that is received you know I can't speculate because you know it's it's possibility but again I'm here to express opinion about CA and matters as and uh I never you know observed this incident um sure sure but again it's it's really hard to tell what happened because I don't know what happened exactly I understand but you were here to say a certain depth of the wound and that was something that you pointed out to the jury correct uh dep so is the one it's easy to measure and it's a objective kind of things sure so you would agree though it's fair for me to ask you questions about how it may have came to be that the wound became that deep that's a fair question you agree sure okay so let's talk about that are you fine with that uh until you know some points yes yeah and so that may have occurred if a body is moving towards that knife that's going to impact the depth of the wound agreed yes if a and if a 6'1 13 F 34 person is moving towards into that knife that might make it the knife go deeper correct that's again I can't predict how deep exactly but it's possibility yes sure and certainly if that per person 6'1 134 lb is falling forward so all their weight is going forward onto that knife that's going to impact the force as well correct that's a possibility yes

Channel: WCCO - CBS Minnesota

Views: 40,537

Keywords: WCCO, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Local, News, CBS, apple river stabbing, apple river stabbing trial, nicolae miu

Id: mDlTT2cU4Po

Length: 12min 43sec (763 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 09 2024