By Monica Pryts
Thomas Lorigan was stabbed 17 times and a forensic pathologist with 15 years’ experience said the autopsy was one of the most difficult he has done.
Friday was the second day of the prosecution’s case before Mercer County Common Pleas Court Judge John C. Reed in the homicide trial of Krystle Sue Weaver, 22, Fowler.
She’s accused of killing Lorigan, 44, of 183 Ray Road, Greene Township, and seriously wounding his daughter, Heather Turk, 22, on May 20, 2008, in Ms. Turk’s former home at 94 Clinton St., Apartment 103, Greenville.
Ms. Weaver’s boyfriend, Ronald Victor Machado, 21, Jamestown, was also charged, but he hanged himself May 24, 2008, in his Trumbull County jail cell. The couple once lived with Ms. Turk in the Greenville apartment.
Dr. Eric Vey of the Erie County Coroner’s Office performed the autopsy at 11:45 a.m. May 20. He said Friday Lorigan’s size – 6 feet tall and about 220 pounds – made some of the exam difficult.
The procedure took about eight hours and Vey said he can usually do four autopsies in that time.
Lorigan had four stab wounds about his head and neck, two of which could have been the fatal blow: one to his left temple that went through his skull and almost all of his brain and the other through his left cheek and out of his neck.
“It’s an immediately fatal wound,” Vey said of either of those injuries, adding major blood vessels and arteries were severed.
It’s impossible to tell the order in which the wounds were made, he said, describing the autopsy photos displayed on computer screens for the 12 jurors.
Lorigan had other stab wounds and a broken arm. A stab to Lorigan’s right bicep went through the bone and broke it in half, Vey said. He also had cuts, scrapes and bruises, some of which Vey called “defense wounds.” Lorigan likely fought his attacker and tried to grab the knife, making some small cuts on his hands.
Vey compared the two knives police believe were used in the attack to the wounds: a folding knife with a blade almost 4 inches long and another knife with a 7-inch blade. Some of the deeper wounds were likely made with the longer knife while the others could have been made by either weapon, he said.
Later test results showed Lorigan had caffeine, acetaminophen, prescription pain killers, a muscle relaxer and anti-depressant and marijuana in his system.
Vey collected Lorigan’s fingernail clippings and blood from his heart to ensure it wasn’t contaminated. It would have been up to investigators to test the nail clippings for DNA from the attacker and Vey said he didn’t know if they were sent to a crime lab.
Police didn’t ask Vey to collect hair samples or blood stains from Lorigan’s clothes, he said.
“Just because I didn’t collect it doesn’t mean it wasn’t there,” he said.
In other testimony:
• John Ludwig, a state police investigator who retired in August, recounted for jurors his interview with Ms. Weaver May 21, 2008, at the home she shared with her mother, and her written statement, and showed them the video statement Ms. Weaver made May 21 at the Trumbull County Sheriff’s office. Ludwig, who was accompanied by trooper Ron Novak to Ms. Weaver’s home, said she told them she expected to be questioned after she read on the Internet about the “severe assault” at 94 Clinton. Ms. Weaver said she and Machado lived there for about seven months and last saw Ms. Turk May 16. The night of May 19, she said the couple visited the Pymatuning Township home of Ms. Turk’s ex-husband Michael Turk, went to Jamestown to see Machado’s stepfather and then returned to Fowler.
Ms. Weaver’s story “just wasn’t adding up,” Ludwig said, and he told her she would be treated as a witness if she didn’t implicate herself in the assault. She then changed her story, saying, “I was there, but Ron did it,” and said she didn’t tell the truth initially because she was scared.
In the video, Ms. Weaver says she and Machado went to the apartment because he wanted to confront Ms. Turk about being kicked out.
She said she waited in the car. “A couple minutes later I heard Heather screaming.”
She went to the door, saw Ms. Turk shaking on the floor and could hear her daughters, ages 1 and 2 at the time, screaming and crying. The girls weren’t injured.
Machado told her to leave and shoved her out the door. Ms. Weaver went back inside and got no response when she asked Ms. Turk if she had called the police with the cell phone in her hand.
She said she tried to grab 2-year-old Faythe, whom Machado put in the living room. She saw him with a knife and asked what he did to Ms. Turk, and then he threatened to hurt her, too.
Ms. Weaver saw blood on the kitchen wall and didn’t think to look around for Lorigan. She went back to her car and rested her head on the steering wheel, thinking “Is this really happening?”
Machado followed a few minutes later with blood on his face, hands, shirt and pants, demanding she drive him back to Fowler.
“We have to tell them something,” she told Machado, thinking the police were on their way. “No, we don’t,” he said.
Ms. Weaver was afraid Machado would kill her if she didn’t keep quiet and drive off. At her home, he told her to take a shower and he changed his clothes.
“I didn’t question anything,” she said. “He played it off like nothing was going on, like he didn’t do anything.”
Neither of them slept that night and Machado wouldn’t let Ms. Weaver go downstairs until that afternoon, when her mother left. The couple went to Olive Garden in Niles, Ohio, and Machado was arrested at her home later that day. That was the last time they saw each other.
“I just want to go home safe,” she said near the end of the video.
When cross-examining Ludwig, Ms. Weaver’s attorney, Stephen Misko of Butler, pointed out that Ms. Weaver chose to put herself at the scene of the crime and never admitted to holding a knife that night or hurting anyone.
• Amanda Mandrella of Penn Avenue, who lives across the street from 94 Clinton, testified she saw a man and a woman she identified as Ms. Weaver stealing items from the apartment late May 19.
“It looked suspicious to me,” she said.
She knew Ms. Turk and the children enough to recognize them and she had seen Ms. Weaver at the apartment with the man several times.
Ms. Mandrella heard the couple bickering that night and Ms. Weaver seemed nervous and scared while the man was angry. When she went outside the next morning, she saw police at the apartment and told them about the night before.
• Greenville-West Salem Township patrolman Wesley Carson said he searched Ms. Weaver’s bedroom May 22 with authorities from Butler and Trumbull County. Ms. Weaver told Greenville-West Salem Sgt. Paul Molton about items that would be in her room and were recovered: the sweatshirt and belt Machado wore May 19; Ms. Turk’s purse and television; and prepaid cell phones and shoes the couple bought May 20 at an Ohio Kmart.
Mercer County District Attorney Robert G. Kochems said he expects to finish calling the prosecution’s witnesses, including Ms. Turk, on Tuesday morning. Testimony continues at 9 a.m. Monday.
