(Caution: Some descriptions may be too graphic for some readers.)
Prosecutors Tuesday linked Justin Thurber to Jodi Sanderholm’s car – a vehicle the defendant told investigators he’d never been in – and detailed the injuries Thurber is accused of inflicting on Sanderholm in Jan. 2007. Scientific evidence made up most of the trial’s sixth day, which the state has said would be its last full day of presenting evidence.
Sedgwick County medical examiner Jaime Oeberst led jurors through an extensive revisiting of the autopsy she performed on Jodi Sanderholm more than two years ago. Images of the Cowley College student’s bruised and battered body were displayed in open court as Oeberst described the examination.
Several courtroom observers covered their eyes at times. Jodi’s mother, Cindy Sanderholm, clung to her husband, Brian, and sometimes appeared to shade her eyes.
Oeberst testified that strangulation and blunt force trauma to the face or head caused Sanderholm’s death. The victim’s neck and chest area showed bruising that indicated her assailant had begun to strangle Sanderholm and then let up. The assailant’s hands were repositioned several times, Oeberst said.
Strangulation is deadly after 3 to 5 minutes in most cases, she said, but death would take longer in instances where a victim was strangled to the point of unconsciousness then allowed to breathe again. The medical examiner said that is what she believed to have happened in Sanderholm’s case.
Oeberst also agreed with Cowley County Attorney Christopher Smith’s assessment that Sanderholm had been "beat up pretty bad."
Jurors heard testimony from Diana Schunn, sexual assault nurse examiner for Via Christi Regional Medical Center. Schunn conducted the sexual assault portion of the autopsy and presented her findings in court.
She said that some injuries to the vagina and anus – made with with pieces of wood – occurred before Sanderholm died.
MORNING
Most of the morning session was consumed by testimony about a hair found in Sanderholm’s car after it was pulled from the Cowley County State Fishing Lake. Tape was used to pull hair and other fiber from a seat in Jodi’s car. Most hairs were not a match to Thurber but one that was found was "indistinguishable" from a sample taken from Thurber’s arm, according to Kevin Winer, a technician in the Kansas City crime lab.
The hair was sent to Mitotyping Technologies LLC, where it underwent mitochondrial DNA testing. Dr. Terry Melton, president of Mitotyping, testified that the hair had characteristics that would be found only in about .15 percent of the population, or less. Thurber’s family is among that .15 percent, she said.
Jurors have previously watched a video in which Thurber denied ever being in Sanderholm’s car.
