The Tribune

By PAVEL BAILEY

Tribune Staff Reporter

pbailey@tribunemedia.net

AS the inquest into a police-involved killing on Cowpen Road in 2018 continued yesterday, a pathologist testified that Roy Stubbs suffered six gunshot wounds to his chest and Ernest Forest was shot in his head.

Dr Caryn Sands testified that Roy Stubbs’ cause of death was gunshot wounds to the torso and extremities.

She said she observed six gunshot wounds to Stubbs’ chest during her autopsy and recovered six bullets from his body. She further said that the bullets went through his heart, liver, spleen and kidney.

She said she also saw gunshot injuries to Stubbs’ buttocks.

Dr Sands told K Melvin Munroe, the attorney for the two officers in this inquest, that given the bullets’ trajectory, it was likely that Stubbs was standing sideways when he was shot in his posterior.

She also said the deceased could have been in motion during the shooting.

She said Ernest Forest’s cause of death was gunshot wounds to the head, torso and lower left extremity.

She detailed how a bullet went through Forest’s occipital scalp and fractured his skull before entering his brain. She also said he suffered a gunshot wound to the torso that entered his right side, penetrated his lungs and vertebrae, and exited the left side of his back. She said Forest had a gunshot wound to his shoulder and abdomen, which penetrated his stomach.

Dr Sands told the jury that Forest suffered a broken femur from a bullet injury to his thigh. In addition to having abrasions to his left and right elbow, she said she recovered a bullet and two bullet fragments from Forest’s body.

The pathologist said neither deceased had evidence of close-range discharge to their bodies.

Inspector Henrington Curry of the police firearm unit testified that the silver and black Smith & Wesson .38 special revolver and a black Ruger 9mm pistol allegedly found near the deceased’s bodies were tested and found capable of firing.

Inspector Curry further said some of the bullet casings pulled from the scene of the shooting matched the weapons police say belonged to the slain men.

However, when the jury asked if he had performed fingerprint analysis on the two weapons, the officer said that he could not answer as it was not done in his office.

It was previously testified that fingerprint swabs were taken from both weapons recovered at the scene.

Angelo Whitfield is marshalling the evidence.