Bullet trajectory key subject at trial
Surgeon, pathologist testify at Almaraz court session Thursday
By Katie Pizza
Argus Observer
Friday, May 9, 2008 12:32 PM PDT
Payette — A surgeon who attempted to save the life of a gunshot victim and a forensic pathologist testified in Payette County Court Thursday in the murder trial of Hector Brito Almaraz.
Almaraz is charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of Gabriel Flores in the Club 7 bar in Fruitland in April 2006.
Dr. Anthony Tesnohlidek testified about the bullet’s path through Flores’ body. He said the bullet went through the bottom part of Flores’ left lung before stopping inside his body.
“The front of the lung is higher than the back of the lung,” he said. “It’s just a matter of where he was at in his breath before he got shot.”
He testified he sealed off the portion of the lung that was injured using a medical stapler.
In a drawing, he showed the bullet entered the lower left portion but did not puncture the lower right portion of the lung. He said the reason the bullet remained inside Flores was because it lost velocity.
He said he did not believe the bullet changed trajectory as it traveled through Flores’ but emphasized the fact he was a general surgeon at the time and could not speak for certain on the subject.
The jury also heard from Idaho State Police Forensic Pathologist Dr. Glen Grobin, who performed an autopsy on Flores in Boise. Grobin used photographs taken at the time of the autopsy to illustrate how he moved through the procedure. He said he has performed more than 2,000 autopsies, with a few hundred of them involving gunshot wounds.
“We try to obtain evidence from the body,” he said. “Then we open up the body to try to correlate what we see externally with what is going on internally.”
In the photographs, he showed a cross-hatched pattern on the side of Flores’ head. Grobin said this pattern could be from an impact with an item with particular pattern on it. He also showed Flores had abrasions and bruising on his face and head.
“Are these injuries consistent with being in a fist fight?” Payette County Prosecuting Attorney Brian Lee asked.
Grobin said yes. He then testified he found Flores had no brain injury.
“The main injury was the result of the gunshot,” he said. He testified the bullet entered between two ribs and hit Flores’ lung before exiting between another two ribs.
“It stopped just beneath the skin,” he said.
In another photograph, he showed the bullet, surrounded by bruised skin.
The defense objected to the pictures, asserting the autopsy pictures were inflammatory. However, Judge Gregory Culet said he felt the evidence’s relevance overruled the defense’s concern with the jury seeing the pictures.
Grobin then used a mannequin to point out where the bullet had entered Flores’ body and where it stopped. Lee then used a dowel to connect the two holes to show the bullet’s trajectory. However, defense attorney Rolf Kehne had an issue with the recreation, stating the mannequin did not have the body type of Flores.
Kehne asserted a mannequin with a larger chest would change the end point of the bullet because it would be traveling further.
“The angle is not exact,” Grobin said. “But it’s fairly good.”
Kehne also said the mannequin’s posture presented a problem in the recreation.
“If he was bent over,” Kehne said. “It would still be the same angle, but the shot would have come from a different direction.”
He also asked about blood expelling from the body at the bullet’s impact. However, Grobin said blood is not normally expelled from an entrance wound, rather an exit wound. Since in this particular case there was no external exit wound, he did not feel he should test for blood splatter. Grobin testified the wound would not expel fluid until Flores fell down, rather than at the point of impact. He then said blood normally appears on the weapon when it is in contact with the person fired upon, rather than fired from a distance.
The trial reconvened at 9 a.m. today.
