Two areas of blood stains tested after Beverly Littlecrow suffered a fatal head injury matched the woman’s DNA, a blood spatter analyst told a Saskatoon Queen’s Bench courtroom.
The blood was found on a bedroom door and near a bathroom cabinet in Littlecrow’s home, Sgt. Trevor Knopp testified on Tuesday. He said the size of the spatter indicates force was used, but it doesn’t indicate how it got there.
Littlecrow, 36, died from a subdural hematoma on Jan. 24, 2016. Her boyfriend, 45-year-old Gabriel Joseph Faucher, is on trial for manslaughter, accused of causing the injury that led to her death.
Faucher told police Littlecrow’s blood came from a cut above her eye that she got when she fell and hit her head on the outdoor steps of their home three days before she died.
However, a girl who testified earlier in the trial said the injury resulted from a fight she witnessed between the couple, who rented a home near Kinley, Sask. The girl’s identity is protected by a publication ban.
Their landlord, Janet Olson, said Faucher had a scratch on his face when he came to see her hours after Littlecrow died in a Saskatoon hospital. He told her the cat had scratched him, she testified.
Faucher later told police that he scratched his face when he fell alongside Littlecrow on the steps.
Four out of the seven blood stains that were tested contained no human DNA, Knopp testified.
He said although shaking a bloody object could cause that type of spatter, smaller blood stains require a greater amount of force.
Neuropathologist Dr. Chris Robinson testified on Tuesday that Littlecrow’s brain injury would have happened on the day of her death, not over several days.
Under cross-examination, he said a subdural hematoma could arise from falling and striking one’s head on a wall so hard that it causes a dent.
That’s what Faucher told police must have caused Littlecrow to go unconscious after she collapsed on top of him in bed.