Gove Co. murder trial goes to jury
By MIKE CORN
WaKEENEY -- The first-degree murder case against David A. Stevenson was put in the hands of a six-man, six-woman jury this morning.
Two women on the 14-member panel who heard the case were identified as alternate jurors Thursday in Trego County District Court.
Closing arguments followed on the heels of District Judge Ed Bouker reading a series of jury instructions, assembled Thursday afternoon after both sides rested their cases.
As his final witness, defense attorney Paul Oller called a forensic pathologist to rebut the findings of District Coroner Lyle Noordhoek, who ruled the death of Walter A. Stevenson -- the 85-year-old father of David Stevenson -- was a homicide.
Dr. Thomas Young, who founded Heartland Forensic Pathology in Kansas City, Mo., said the manner of death was an accident. He even went so far as to say it was "incomprehensible" to think one person could have carried out the death of Walter Stevenson and made it look like an accident.
Young was smooth and polished as he was being questioned by Oller, giving precise answers to the jury.
But when prosecutor Steven Karrer started questioning him, he fumbled when asked what position Walter Stevenson was in when the bed of the grain truck came down on him, nearly decapitating him.
After a series of exchanges between Karrer and Young, the pathologist said he put Walter Stevenson in the center of the truck. Earlier testimony regarding statements from David Stevenson put him on the outside of the truck frame.
Young, however, said Walter Stevenson was on the inside, and when the bed came down he was struck by a "strut," something that never was identified, and his head was pushed back onto the frame of the truck.
Along the way, Young used a series of grisly photographs to demonstrate how he came at that conclusion.
Karrer also pointed out that David Stevenson, who found his father under the truck, told investigators his father was being held up under the truck when his neck was caught between the truck frame and the bed.
And when Karrer pushed the issue of possible injuries caused by the truck's power take-off shaft, Young said he wasn't familiar with that part of the truck.
"I don't know much about the PTO, frankly," he said.
He also said he couldn't recall ever seeing injuries caused by a PTO shaft.
Oller rested his case after Young testified, and after consulting with Stevenson.
All the while Young was on the witness stand, forensic pathologist Erik Mitchell, Topeka, was in the audience.
Mitchell, as it turned out, had been asked to review Noordhoek's findings from his autopsy of Walter Stevenson, and had traveled to Gove to review the 1953 grain truck that was the immediate cause of death of the Gove County farmer.
"It doesn't make sense being on the inside," Mitchell said of Young's theory that the elder Stevenson was inside the frame of the truck. "You have a working truck. You have no reason to be under there working on anything."
Mitchell, in fact, said he agreed with Noordhoek's findings and said there was evidence of high-impact blows to the back of Walter Stevenson's head that ultimately would have led to his death.