The Tribune

By LAMECH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

ljohnson@tribunemedia.net

A WOMAN murdered on her job at a resort in San Salvador received some 15 cuts and stab wounds, a Supreme Court jury was told by a pathologist yesterday.

Dr Caryn Sands of the Princess Margaret Hospital testified that of the 15 cuts and stabs wounds on the body of 21-year-old Oneika Johnson, two stab wounds on the right side of her neck and two that punctured her left lung were the most fatal, because of the significant bleeding caused.

Dr Sands noted that these wounds were likely to have been caused by a knife. She said the cuts found on Johnson’s forearm and fingers were consistent of a person defending himself from such an attack.

Rashid Dean, Ms Johnson’s former boyfriend, sat in the prisoner’s dock as the physician gave her evidence.

Dean, 28, denies the murder charge. Ms Johnson was murdered on August 14, 2011.

On the day in question, Ms Johnson was found in the security booth unresponsive with multiple lacerations.

Dean, the father of her young child, was arrested days later and charged with the murder.

In yesterday’s proceedings, Dr Sands said she conducted an autopsy on the deceased on August 18, 2011 and collected toxicological samples to be handed to the police for forensic analysis.

The physician then went on to list the number of injuries on Ms Johnson’s body.

While the pathologist noted that the stab wounds to her neck were less than two inches deep, she said they were deep enough to injure the major blood vessel above Johnson’s clavicle bone.

Two of the four stab wounds found on the torso of the deceased had penetrated the upper region of her left lung, both three inches in depth.

In cross-examination, the pathologist was asked if she personally handed over the items to a police officer.

Dr Sands said she did not. She also admitted that she did not include this in her medical report.

The trial resumes today before Justice Indra Charles.

Dean is represented by Murrio Ducille, Krysta Mason-Smith and Nathan Smith.

Darnell Dorsett is prosecuting the case.