Pensioner may have been slain with kitchen knife

MARTON pensioner Mona Morriss bled to death from multiple stab wounds which may have been made with a common kitchen knife, forensic pathologist George Thomas told the High Court in Wanganui yesterday.
Dr Thomas, who performed the autopsy on Mrs Morriss on January 6, 2005, told the court he believed the 83-year-old was alive and either unconscious or semiconscious at the time she was stabbed in the chest following multiple blows to her head.
During the autopsy Dr Thomas said he noted four prominent injuries to Mrs Morriss' head that had been caused by four separate blows.
There was a haemorrhage adjacent to the bridge of her nose next to her right eye and a fracture of the lower part of the right eye socket as well as bruising on the left side of her face from the outside edge of her left eyebrow.
Dr Thomas also observed a large semicircular bruise below Mrs Morriss' right earlobe which had probably been caused by the impact from her earring.
The fourth injury was a vertical-linear fracture to the back left side of her skull beneath a 12 by 14cm area of haemorrhage to the scalp.
Dr Thomas said in his opinion the first three injuries had probably been caused by blows from a fist, however the fracture was more likely to come from a kick, a blow from an object or a fall.
In response to questions from defence counsel Steve Winter he said it was highly likely the last injury or a combination of all the injuries would have rendered Mrs Morriss unconscious and caused her to fall.
Dr Thomas also observed six external stab wounds to the left side of her chest, ranging in length from 1.8cm to 2.9cm, which had penetrated her left lung, her heart, her aorta, oesophagus, diaphragm and stomach, causing bleeding into her chest cavity on the right and left side and her abdomen.
Mrs Morriss had died primarily due bleeding from wounds to her heart, he said.
The wounds were probably caused by a knife with a single-edged blade knife with a sharp end which would have an estimated minimum length of 8 to 11cm, Dr Thomas said.
"I know knives that could create wounds like that would be fairly common I would probably have some in my kitchen drawer," he said.
Dr Thomas believed Mrs Morriss had been unconscious during the stabbing as there was little smearing of blood and no sign that she had tried to fend off an attack.
However, it would not necessarily take a great deal of force to cause the stab wounds inflicted on Mrs Morriss, Dr Thomas said.
Among the exhibits presented to the court yesterday, was a suede-covered diary belonging to murder-accused Tracy Goodman, which was read out on request from her defence counsel.
The diary, contained just four entries, which expressed Goodman's depression about potentially losing access to supervised visits to her eight-year-old son.
In the entry for January 4 2005 the day after Mrs Morriss' death Goodman writes about her reaction to a letter she had received from ACROSS Social Services in December.
"Since that letter I don't seem to know who I am or if I'm making the right decision about giving up on custody or him altogether my heart for my boy won't let go, so I go with that. If only the system had given me a chance, I doubt I would ever have gone as far back as I have I need to not hurt, I pray help me please Lord please help me I don't want to lose my bond with my boy."
Goodman goes on to say she felt like her life had dropped "head-long" into depression.
"I don't want to drown myself with hatred for other Christians or the ACROSS system, I need an avenue to move on positively," she writes.
The next day Goodman writes of a desire to keep her "pact" with God and a feeling she was taking "two steps forward and five steps back".
"I try to do good, but that damned spirit is still trying to hold me down," she writes.
"But the devil, evil one, is not going to stop me from keeping my pact with you my God."
The trial continues today.