Bristol Crown Court: A recent court proceeding presented information that a woman, said to have been killed by her partner, had in her body a concentration of cocaine that was three times the amount that is considered potentially fatal.
The deceasedt, Olivia Wood, 29, of Northwich, Cheshire, was found by emergency medical personnel in her residence critically ill and near death. The residence was that of Ms. Wood's partner, Kieron Goodwin. It is located in Frome, Somerset. The same day, at a medical facility, Ms. Wood was declared deceased; the prosecution states that Mr. Goodwin fatally asphyxiated her.
Kieron Goodwin, 33, is on trial at Bristol Crown Court for the murder of Olivia Wood at his flat in Frome in Somerset, on 30 July last year. Allegations have surfaced that Mr. Goodwin, now 33, engaged in a systematic pattern of controlling behavior against Ms. Wood during their three-month romantic relationship. He has denied charges of murder and causing grievous bodily harm. However, he has admitted to one charge: that he was controlling.
Mrs Wood, an ecologist, living in Liverpool, was thought of as ‘diligent and professional, held in high esteem’ by her peers. Even though Ms. Wood did not live in a formal manner with Mr. Goodwin, she often spent a substantial amount of time with him in Frome.
The court heard that the relationship took a turn towards a controlling dynamic imposed by Mr. Goodwin. In the nearly two years that Ms. Wood and Mr. Goodwin were together, Ms. Wood sent Mr. Goodwin over £6,000. Much was believed to be for the purchase of cocaine.
Prosecutors were clear that Mr. Goodwin was a regular drug user who was being financed by Ms. Wood. Watts APP messages showed that Goodwin coerced her into performing sexual acts with other men. In the days before her untimely death, Ms. Wood reached out to her employer to tell them she needed to take a leave of absence. She expressed that she was very worried about her partner's mental health and that he had made some very concerning threats to harm himself.
As a defense witness, toxicologist Dr. Stephen Morley offered testimony at Bristol Crown Court regarding his lengthy experience as an expert witness, having been involved in around 200 cases for both sides. Elucidating on his role in the nearly 20-year-old case, Dr. Morley laid out the various ways that cocaine could have contributed to the death of Ms. Woods.
He expressed to the court that it is tough—even for the experts—to really know just how much cocaine a person has ingested. It is a known fact that the drug is rapidly metabolized in the human body, but what most people don't know is that the standard operating procedure for a toxicologist is to see what has been left over in the body after it has done its work and try to assess how much of a certain substance was present before it was processed and ejected.
Both Ms. Woods and Mr. Goodwin consumed large amounts of the substance they were tested for. The tests run on them before they died showed that Ms. Woods had around seven micrograms of BZE in every liter of blood. Mr. Goodwin, on the other hand, had about half that concentration.
Ms. Woods' BZE concentration was situated within the upper 2.5% of the cases encountered by my laboratory, Dr. Morley noted. He observed that post-mortem examinations of individuals who had died from cocaine toxicity showed our mean BZE concentration, in their blood samples, was 1.8 micrograms per liter.
Ms. Woods' results, Dr. Morley said, showed concentrations of the substance that were three times higher than what toxicologists would consider 'likely to be fatal.' But he offered a caveat: There is no clear bottom line that says if you go over this number, death is guaranteed.
A post-mortem revealed Olivia had potentially fatal level of cocaine in her system, and the hyoid bone in her neck was fractured - an injury often associated with fatal neck compression.
The pathologist also found bruising in the shape of parallel lines to her neck, consistent with a belt of about 3cm in width. Mr Goodwin told police he strangled Ms Wood as part of consensual sex, and that afterwards she had taken some more cocaine.
The trial continues…
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