By Grace Q. Bryant
Prosecution’s 13th witness, Benedict Bongolie Kolee, testified that the sample collected on the crime scene of the late Charloe Musa implicates no male in the alleged crime.
Testifying on a power point at the Criminal Court ‘A’, Kolee, Liberia’s chief pathologist, said , “At the close of the examination, we did execrate study, we wanted to know things that have contributed to this, in my intro, so we took DNA sample where the blood spattered, we wanted to know whether there was a foreign agent, we also chipped out some of the nails. The samples taken in the room opposite Charloe Musu’s room, and the samples taken from her nails showed mixed DNA profile; all of the other samples were from a single source.”
According to him, “All of the samples taken showed an xx sex chromosome, which means the differences between a man and a woman is in our genetics, the way our genes are in us. So every human being has 46 chromosomes, 23 from our mother, 23 from our father, the men have xy chromosomes, so based on that, the concept of sex determination, whether a child is a boy or girl, is determined by a man because he has xy chromosome, so the DNA findings, at least for the purpose of the sample that we took, did not find any male chromosome; there were lots of people involved with this across the world.”
He further explained that from the forensic point of view, the test excluded the presence of a male in the samples that were collected. Again, from the forensic point of view, it would never have been of any legal significance if the accused person was found in the sample collected, because they live there, their DNA should be all over the place.
“But bearing in mind the fact that we did not find a male DNA in the collected samples, it is significant in the fact that there may not have been a male in the crime that was committed,” Kolee noted.
Kolee furthered that the DNA under her finger was mixed and the one in the sink was mixed, and so all the persons involved in the samples were female.
He revealed that he did project blood pattern at the entrance of the deceased’s room and within the bathroom of defendant, Gloria Musu Scott, and he noticed that they were consistent with someone lying on the back.
“Secondly, with reference to the dress, if someone was wearing a blouse or dress that was soaked with blood and that person lied on the ground, the dress will not stop the blood markings as showed on the ground. So, for you to assert the very fact that I said that there were blood markings on the ground is consistent with someone lying in the supine position, does not in any way invalidate the statement we made quoting the nurse that the patient Charlotte was presented wearing a dress or blouse, depending on how you look at it,” he explained.
According to him, the goal of the autopsy was not to find a murder weapon, but however, findings from the autopsy have been elucidated, and can give clues to the Police and others investigating as to the nature of weapon used on the deceased.
“The edges of the wound on the deceased are clean cut, so that constitutes evidence beyond doubt that the weapon used to kill Charlotte was a sharp object. From the autopsy, we cannot say that it was a knife or a cutlass, because my term of reference did not cover such section,” he noted.
He explained, “A pathologist can say also the direction of the injury; we are able to say the entry and exit wound to sometime give an idea about the probable nature of the weapon used, so to come specifically to the question of a DNA being done on a murder weapon, that is a possibility with certain caveats.
Meanwhile, Judge Roosevelt Willie has ordered to issue a Subpoena decu tecum and ad testificandum to the Management of the Redemption Hospital and the Medical Doctor and/or Physician that attended to the victim, Charlotte Musu, when she was taken to that hospital.
Subpoena witnesses will appear in court on today, Wednesday, November 1, at 10:00am.
