Juror in tears over graphic autopsy testimony

The vivid details proved overwhelming for one juror, whose sudden weeping penetrated the silence of the courtroom

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Caution: This article contains extremely disturbing content.
BRACEBRIDGE - A juror broke down into tears as Ontario’s chief forensic pathologist described the graphic details behind Samantha Collins’ brutal murder and dismemberment.
Called as a Crown witness on Wednesday, Feb. 27, Dr. Michael Pollanen determined Collins was killed by an “elongated, blunt instrument,” after being struck four times in the back of the head. He said Collins was struck with such force that her skull was shattered.
“In this case, what we know is that the amount of force that was applied to (her) head was sufficient to break the skull,” he said. “But also because there are these points of weakness where the skull bones come together, those can also be torn apart by the force.”
Angling away from the jury, Pollanen ran his left hand down the back of his own head to show where he found the main, six-centimetre fracture on the back of Collins’ head.
“This progressed from essentially the central portion of the back of the head, where there’s a little raised area … and it radiated downward towards the left-hand side,” he said.
Pollanen found the 29-year-old Bracebridge woman’s severed head in the last of four pails that contained her dismembered remains. The pails were found in a wooden crate, which police discovered in the storage area of a Merrick Drive cottage on July 5, 2010. Collins first went missing in 2007. Her estranged partner Ian Charles Borbely was arrested and charged with her murder four years later.
In his examinations, Pollanen made note of distinct injuries to the index and ring fingers of Collins’ right hand.
“The hand showed these two open wounds, beneath which the finger bones were broken,” he said.
Crown attorney Douglas Kasko questioned whether it was possible that those injuries could appear on someone who is covering the back of their head with their right hand.
“You certainly could put your hand over the back of your head where lacerations are present, yes,” said Pollanen. “I believe what you’re trying to discuss is a correlation of the wounds on the back of the hand. You’d need to have an instrument come down onto the surface to produce the wounds on the hand.”
But from the state of the body parts in the pails, Pollanen was unable to specifically determine a time of death. He said this is because they were sealed in a closed environment with no exposure to oxygen.
“You can think of them as being in a suspended animation-type circumstance,” he said. “In other words, the decomposition process that would normally occur … is slowed down. One of the things that this implies is that it’s actually very difficult – I would say impossible – based upon current methods, to actually determine when death occurred.”
Collins’ brain, which had deteriorated significantly since the time of death, yielded another distinctive finding.
“When I examined the brain tissue under a microscope, what I found was evidence that ice crystals had formed in the brain at some point … this tells us that the brain itself was frozen at some point in time,” he said. “Specifically what can be inferred from this is that the brain had gone through at least one freeze/thaw cycle.”
Defence attorney Paul Cooper questioned whether the remainder of Collins’ body parts could have also gone through the same freeze/thaw exposure. Pollanen said he was unable to definitively confirm if that was the case.
It was at around that point that the vivid details proved overwhelming for one juror, whose sudden weeping penetrated the silence of the courtroom. After a brief recess, the juror returned recomposed, and remained for the rest of the day.
On a series of about 10 diagrams, Pollanen showed how Collins’ body parts were methodically divided amongst the four pails.
“Essentially quartered,” Pollanen said of the dissection.
The first pail contained parts of Collins’ upper right-side. The second contained parts of her upper left side.
“This really forms the mirror image of the main mass of body parts in bucket (number one),” Pollanen said of the second pail.
The third and fourth pails contained Collins’ lower extremities. Some internal organs were recovered, including her heart and right lung. However, others, like her intestines, were missing.
The missing intestines, Pollanen said, contributed to delaying decomposition of her body.
“The intestines contain quite a lot of bacteria, and those bacteria spread through the body after death to break your body down,” Pollanen said. “But her intestines having been removed, it removed a lot of that bacteria … so the body parts were actually well preserved.” All of the body parts recovered, Pollanen said, weighed just 78 pounds in total.
When he examined cuts on the skin at the areas of dismemberment, Pollanen said it appeared to indicate a sharp-edged instrument had been used.
“When we looked at the ends of the bones, (we) found evidence of regular scoring or markings … indicating that a saw had been applied to the bone,” he said. “So in addition to the sharp trauma – post-mortem use of a sharp instrument to cut the skin – there’s also evidence that a saw or saws had been applied.”
Dr. Katherine Lynne Gruspier, a forensic anthropologist with the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service, was called in later that day to share her findings about cuts to Collins’ bones.
“The most likely type of saw would be a reciprocating saw,” she said.
Earlier in the week, the court heard that forensic investigators poured over six saws that were seized after Borbely’s arrest. They were only able to find traces of DNA evidence from blood on two reciprocating saws.
One had an insufficient quantity to test, while male DNA found on the other did not match Borbely’s.
Likewise, the court heard that DNA associated with Borbely was not found on three of the four pails examined. The fourth pail, four hairs investigators seized from the pails and the wooden crate were all deemed unsuitable for DNA testing.
The trial continues this week. For continuing updates, please see this newspaper, the Bracebridge Examiner, the Gravenhurst Banner, the Huntsville Forester or visit cottagecountrynow.ca.

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