Wounds the focus at suicide-for-hire trial
It was plunging, not lunging.
That was the testimony of a prosecution expert who testified Friday at the Jeffrey Locker suicide-for-hire trial that the depth and direction of the Woodmere motivational speaker's fatal stab wounds contradicted defense claims he lunged onto a stationary knife to kill himself.
"It's my opinion he was stabbed to death," said Dr. Jonathan Hayes, the forensic pathologist who autopsied Locker. "It's driven in with considerable strength each time. I don't think it's consistent with someone thrusting themselves onto the knife."
Kenneth Minor, 38, of East Harlem, is charged with second-degree murder in the 2009 stabbing of Locker, 52, who prosecutors concede had driven into the city to hire someone to help kill him so his family would be able to collect on millions in life insurance that would not pay out for a suicide.
Assisted suicide is a defense to a murder charge in New York, and Minor in his confession said he played a passive role - merely holding a knife next to the steering wheel in Locker's car while Locker impaled himself on it. Locker's hands were bound.
Testifying in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Hayes said Locker - 5-foot-9 and just over 200 pounds - had six stab wounds to the chest in a 6-inch circle near his left nipple and heart. All were 5 to 7 inches deep. Stabs penetrated his rib cage, left lung, heart, diaphragm and liver, Hayes said.
The downward angle and right-to-left direction of the wounds, he said, was consistent with a person in the passenger seat plunging a knife into the chest. "I think it's almost impossible to get a downward stab wound like this by a blade that's being held by the steering wheel," Hayes said.
He also found no shallow wounds resembling the "hesitation marks" that are typical in suicides, and said it was unlikely that Locker, hands bound, could generate the force for deep penetration in the small space between his chest and the steering wheel.
"No matter how much drive or determination someone has to do that, I don't think they can do it," Hayes told defense lawyer Daniel Gotlin, whose own expert - former Pittsburgh medical examiner Cyril Wecht - is expected to dispute Hayes.
The issue of whether Minor held the knife or thrust it is important, but not necessarily critical.
Presiding Judge Carol Berkman has said she believes the assisted suicide defense is intended only for "passive" help. But the statute refers to "causing or aiding" a suicide, language that the defense says is broad enough to cover either scenario. The trial resumes Tuesday.
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