Press Clippings--Part IX

Boyfriend's story didn't sound right: Said girlfriend fell Too much blood for that kind of injury, paramedic tells trial
The Gazette, March 22, 2006
By Katherine Wilton

When paramedics arrived at Kelly-Anne Drummond's Pierrefonds apartment on Oct. 3, 2004, her anxious boyfriend was standing in the hallway, gesturing for them to come inside quickly.

As they entered the kitchen, they spotted the 24-year-old woman lying unconscious on her back, a large pool of blood around her head.

"He kept saying she had a big hole behind her head," paramedic Martin Cadieux testified yesterday at the trial of Drummond's live-in boyfriend, Martin Morin-Cousineau. He is charged with second-degree murder.

"He said she was not breathing. He was very nervous."

Drummond died two days after being knifed near the base of her skull. A 9.5-centimetre-long blade was lodged in her skull, a brain scan showed.

Glass from the oven door was scattered around the kitchen. There also were several pieces of glass in Drummond's long hair, Cadieux testified, which led him to believe her head "may have come into contact with the oven door."

Cadieux said Morin-Cousineau told him that when he entered the kitchen after hearing something fall, his girlfriend was lying on the floor.

Barnet Wexler, another paramedic who was at the apartment, testified that after Drummond was taken to a hospital, he took the unusual step of using his digital camera to take pictures of the pool of blood.

Wexler said he "wanted to show the doctors how much blood was on the floor."

Wexler said he had been told that Drummond fell in the kitchen, but his many years of experience told him a fall would not lead to that much blood loss.

"It didn't seem right," he told the Quebec Superior Court jury.

"There was a lot of blood and it was already coagulating."

Montreal police Constable Frederic Martineau testified that when he arrived at the apartment that night, Morin-Cousineau told him he and Drummond had been arguing before she went into the kitchen.

Morin-Cousineau said he was sitting on the sofa when he heard something fall. He then told Martineau he found Drummond bleeding on the kitchen floor and called 911.

Martineau said he arrested Morin-Cousineau at the scene because he "didn't believe his version of the story."

When handcuffing Morin-Cousineau, the constable spotted blood on the fingernails of the suspect's left hand and on the left shoulder of his shirt.

Morin-Cousineau told the arresting office the blood was on his hands because he had touched Drummond's head.

While en route to a police operations centre in St. Laurent, Morin-Cousineau repeatedly asked, "Is she OK?" and "Can I go visit her in the hospital?" Martineau testified.

The trial continues today.

kwilton@thegazette.canwest.com