A forensic pathologist told jurors Wednesday during the trial of a Center Township man charged with murdering his wife that the gun that shot her was in close range but he couldn’t say what the exact distance was.
John Cavanaugh, a forensic pathologist who was working with the Lake County Coroner’s Office when Melinda Kirby Lindsey, 23, was killed on Jan. 16, 2015, described how Lindsey was shot once, with the bullet entering her head just above and slightly behind her left ear and then exiting just above and in front of her right ear.
Cavanaugh said he saw some gunpowder residue on the left side of her face, which is what’s considered close range. He said the gun did not appear to be touching Lindsey’s head because then the residue would have been found only in the wound.
However, despite both Porter County Deputy Prosecutor Cheryl Polarek and defense attorney Larry Rogers asking, Cavanaugh said he didn’t have the expertise to say what the actual distance was between her head and the gun when it was fired.
“I’m an expert on the head,” he told Rogers. “Once we’re outside the head, we’re outside the realm of my expertise.”
Her husband, Steven Lindsey, 36, told police at the time that someone broke into their house around 6 a.m., and put him in a chokehold before knocking him out. When he woke up, he told police, he was tied up and in his daughter’s bedroom when he heard the gunshot.
However, prosecutors say the story is a lie and that Steven Lindsey is the one who shot his wife.
Cavanaugh said the only other injury he saw on Lindsey was an abrasion on her lip, which said could have come from being hit or from the intubation doctors used on her, and injuries caused by other medical help after she was taken to the hospital.
He also told the jury that although he would not expect there to be no blood splatter from the gunshot, there also likely wouldn’t be as much as there would be from an injury caused by blunt force trauma, like getting hit with a bat. He added that her hair, which was long and curly, would also have likely caught much of any blood and other body fragments.
“The hair being there is going to absorb what comes out,” he told the jury.
Lindsey looked down at his table as prosecutors showed jurors photos of his wife on the autopsy table.
Valparaiso Sgt. Detective Dave Castellanos also testified Wednesday, showing the jury to-scale drawings he made of the Lindseys’ home on Indiana 149.
Castellanos pointed to where a spent cartridge was found in the corner of the master bedroom to the right of the bed, to about six spots of possible blood splatter found on the wall above and to the right of the bed and to where the gun was found lying on the floor almost completely underneath the foot of the bed.
Rogers asked Castellanos if he thought it odd that a cigarette lighter found on the floor where the shooter would have likely stood wasn’t collected by police, but Castellanos said it appeared that the Lindseys were smokers as police found ashtrays in the bedroom.
The trial ended early for the day because of a winter storm. It is expected to continue Thursday.
