The “Granby girl” weighed just 36 pounds (16.3 kg) and was only one meter tall when she died, which was below growth charts for a 7-year-old, the mother testified on Tuesday. forensic pathologist at the criminal trial of his mother-in-law accused of murder.
Dr. Caroline Tanguay told the jury that she was struck by the little stature of the girl when she performed her autopsy, which aims to determine the cause of her death.
“She’s very skinny” on her face and arms, she said. “His weight loss is significant.” Similar observations had already been made by the police officers who intervened at the family residence on the morning of the tragedy.
And she saw nothing in her medical records – no illness – that could explain her short stature and weight.
The child’s stepmother, who cannot be identified by court order, is charged with forcible confinement and second degree murder. She pleaded not guilty. The Crown intends to demonstrate that it wrapped duct tape around the girl’s body on April 29, 2019 and that her death was pronounced the next day in hospital.
“Nothing that explains the death”
When she performed her autopsy on the small body, Dr. Tanguay saw several marks there which she described as “lesions” or “bruises”.
But they are all “minor, non-specific and do not explain the death”, according to the specialist doctor who has carried out more than 2,200 autopsies in her career.
The forensic pathologist then explained that she did not find any cardiac malformation while carrying out her investigation. There was also no lesion to the mouth, no fractured skull, or hemorrhage in the brain.
One thing, however, caught his attention: the girl had low bone density. Two of her ribs were fractured days before her death, but she may not have felt pain, as is often the case with such fractures in children, she told the 14. jurors.
In short, “at the level of traumatic injuries, there is nothing that explains the death”.
“There is no traumatic cause, no natural cause, no toxicological cause”.
The traces of drugs found in his blood were in “therapeutic quantity”, which respected what the doctor had prescribed.
Without any physical findings that could help her, the pathologist explained that she then had to look to “the circumstances surrounding the death” in order to be able to determine what caused the death of the child.
She continued her testimony on Tuesday afternoon.