Pathologist testifies Daugherty was beaten, stabbed and strangled
Jennifer Daugherty's body was covered from head to toe with wounds indicating that she was beaten, stabbed and strangled before she died, according to Dr. Cyril Wecht, who conducted the autopsy on the 30-year-old Mt. Pleasant woman.
Wecht testified this morning in the sixth day of trial testimony against Angela Marinucci, 18, of Greensburg. District Attorney is seeking a first-degree homicide conviction in the trial before Westmoreland County Judge Rita Hathaway.
Marinucci is the first of six suspects to be tried in the torture and slaying of Daugherty in a Greensburg apartment on North Pennsylvania Avenue.
Police say Marinucci lured Daugherty to the apartment because the defendant was jealous of Daugherty's relationship with Marinucci's boyfriend.
Wecht said Daugherty had been stabbed seven times. Three of the wounds penetrated her heart and left lung.
Jurors stared at the autopsy photos shown on a television monitor by District Attorney John Peck and took notes while they listened to Wecht's testimony.
"Collectively, it would be all the injuries, specifically the cause of death would have been stab wounds of the chest," he said.
He said Daugherty did not die immediately, but began to lose consciousness slowly and likely lived five to six minutes after she was initially stabbed.
"You wouldn't die immediately but you would begin to lose consciousness, " Wecht said.
When Wecht received Daugherty's body to autopsy on Feb. 11, 2010, it was stuffed inside a black trash can, in a fetal-like position, he said.
Christmas lights were wrapped around her neck and her wrists.
Wecht said he did not find any evidence that Daugherty was raped, but said that she had a significant level of Seroquel , an anti-anxiety medication, in her bloodstream, along with large amounts of Zoloft, an antidepressant, which would have made her very drowsy.
Outside the courtroom, Wecht said, "It certainly indicates there was some kind of torture process . Most of them (injuries) would have occurred in a matter of some hours to a couple of days. They are consistent with doing this in a deliberate fashion, consistent with wounds that would have been torture.
"She would have suffered greatly," Wecht said.
