Government pathologist Johansen Oduor was hard-pressed to explain how a dead man’s clothes got soiled as indicated in a report he wrote after conducting a repeat autopsy.
Dr Oduor was being cross examined by Otieno Abuor at the Meru Magistrate Court before Senior Resident Magistrate Evans Mbicha.
Abuor is representing the late Benedict Karau’s third widow. Oduor could not confirm whether the coffin was intact after exhumationor if photos were taken to document the same.
The exhumation was conducted on August 18, 2015 in the presence of Dr Sylvester Maingi who was a pathologist in Embu at the time and the OCS Mikinduri Police Station following a court order issued on July 23, 2015.
Maingi told court that Karau’s sons Boniface Mugambi and Charles Mwongela identified the body before the repeat autopsy.
The pathologist said the body had bruises on the back of the forearm, usually considered defensive injuries.
However, he was able to shed light on how the deceased’s clothes got soiled. He said: “The body was in the coffin that had slightly caved in where the viewing glass was located probably due to pressure from the soil but was intact and no injury was caused by the glass.”
The first postmortem was performed on March 12, 2015 at Consolata Hospital by Scholastica Kimani and Moses Njue. They found the cause of death to be Myocardial infarction which Maingi explained to be death of the heart muscles.
The results of the repeat autopsy performed at the Meru Funeral Home by four pathologists were inconclusive as the heart which had initially been indicated as the cause of death could not be found.
The hearing will continue on November 7 when five witnesses are expected to testify.
