Melissa Richmond took 'several minutes' to die after fatal stab wound, court hears
Melissa Richmond was stabbed with a knife and a screwdriver more than a dozen times but it was the cut to the base of her neck that killed her, forensic pathologist Dr. Christopher Milroy testified Thursday at her husband's first-degree murder trial.
"Several minutes elapsed between that wound and her death," he said.
Canadian soldier Howard Richmond, 52, admitted at the outset of his trial last week that he stabbed his 28-year-old wife to death in July 2013 but pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.
His lawyers have argued he is not criminally responsible because he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder caused by six tours of duty as a member of the Canadian Armed Forces.
Milroy, who performed an autopsy on Melissa Richmond, found more than 40 injuries on her body, including what he said appeared to be defensive wounds on her arms and hand.
Trial in 2nd week
In court on Wednesday, an Ottawa police officer described the ditch where Melissa Richmond's body was found near the South Keys Shopping Centre.
Photos viewed by the court showed Richmond lying on a bed of leaves on her right side, with her left arm outstretched and raised above her head.
There were "disturbed" areas near the body — piles of small sticks and brush, the forensics expert told the court, along with a red Remembrance Day poppy.
The court has previously heard from a police detective who found a bundle of clothes, a knife and screwdriver wedged between the ceiling rafters and the furnace duct in the basement of the couple's home five days after Melissa Richmond's body was found.
Court has also heard that Howard Richmond posted online about voices in his head the night he killed his wife, and that Melissa Richmond was having an affair with a friend of the couple at the time of her death.
The Crown has argued the Richmonds' marriage had been deteriorating for several months before the killing and that Melissa was considering leaving her husband.
