Opinion ID: 2507905
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Discovery of the Bodies.

Text: On Monday morning, May 7, Sun., Sarah, and Arlo found a note from defendant on the kitchen table, stating, Mom and I went out for a while. Behave yourselves and we will see you after school. Love you both, M[Mom] and N. [Nick]. Shortly thereafter, Sarah and Arlo discovered Mary's body behind the couch. The body of April James was found in the bathroom by the bathtub, concealed in an alcove shelf area behind some boxes. Mary's body was dressed in a long cotton nightgown, the front of which was covered with blood stains. Her left jawbone was fractured, there were bruises on her chin and neck, and a five-inch-long cut on her neck had severed both carotid arteries. There were 17 stab wounds to Mary's chest, five of which would have been fatal. According to testimony of the pathologist, Dr. William Ernoehazy, Mary's wounds were caused by a reasonably sharp knife about one-to-two inches wide and eight-to-10 inches long. Several flat, triangular-shaped wounds indicated that the knife had broken during the attack, but the assailant had continued to use it. Mary's heart had been penetrated by a knife four times, her left lung eight times, and her right lung two times. The blood-alcohol level in Mary's body was 0.13 percent. The cause of death was the cut to Mary's throat and the stab wounds to her chest. April's body was dressed in a long-sleeved sweatshirt that was soaked in blood. She had multiple stab wounds in her chest and back, and a linear defensive cut on her left wrist. The chest wounds, two of which punctured the heart, were determined to have been the cause of death. There was an extensive tear on the perineum adjacent to the area between the vagina and anus. The coroner testified that April's vagina had been penetrated by an erect penis. However, visual and microscopic examination of the wound showed that there had been no hemorrhage in the tissue surrounding the tear, suggesting that there was no blood pressure in the area of the perineum at the time of penetration because the heart had fully or nearly ceased beating at the time. The coroner concluded that there still could have been some flickering of the heart muscle at the time of penetration, and that the penetration began before the time of death. A search of the residence found a rug that was missing from the bathroom stained with blood and hidden near the water heater. Blood spots and spatters were present on the bathroom wall, the rug by the bathtub, on the bathroom floor, and on the bathroom shelving. A chef's knife with a broken tip, and the broken tip itself, were found lying on top of some garbage in a box in the kitchen.