Pathologist sheds light on victims' final moments

Wounds on the fingers of guitar picker Fred Fulton suggest the elderly Minto resident tried to fight the attacker who ultimately killed him, a forensic pathologist testified Friday.

Saint John Regional Hospital pathologist Dr. Ken Obenson performed autopsies on both Fulton, 74, and Verna Decarie, 70, after Fulton's daughterdiscovered their bodies in their Minto home on April 26, 2005.

Gregory Allen Despres, 24, is now on trial for first-degree murder in the deaths. Obenson was testifying at that trial on Friday.

Despres lived in a travel trailer on the lot next door to the Fulton-Decarie home and was arrested a few days after the deaths on a highway in Massachusetts after failing to show up for a sentencing hearing on a separate assault charge.

Border guards in Calais, Maine allowed him into the United States on April 25, 2005, but only after they confiscated a cache of weapons including brass knuckles, bayonets, a sword and a chainsaw flecked with reddish-brown stains.

Despres has pleaded not guilty to both murders and has been in custody since his arrest.

Obenson testified that he examined the bodies on April 29, 2005 – three days after they were discovered.

Fulton had 31 injuries: pathologist

Fulton had several wounds on his fingers, Obenson said, suggesting he resisted being stabbed.

The pathologist counted 31 injuries to Fulton's body on his hands, feet, head, neck and chest. The injuries to the chest caused damage to the ribs, lung and sac around the heart.

He also told the court that Fulton was aliveduring thefinal horror of the attack, testifying that the cause of death was decapitation.

"Cause of death appears to be sharp force trauma to the neck, decapitation by other person," Obenson said. "Injuries to the trunk would not have been immediately lethal. [The] most lethal injury in this case was the injury to the neck."

In Decarie’s autopsy,Obenson found 30 stab wounds, causing significant injuries to her neck and chest. He concluded that Decarie bled to death.

Inboth autopsies, Obenson testified the wounds were caused by a sharp instrument – one that was either very heavy, or had a lot of "momentum" behind it.