(These are my notes for Cesar Rodriguez's trial on the day that the defense's Medical Examiner, Dr. Charles Wetli, took the stand. My notes for Cesar's trial are not all that detailed like my notes for Nixzaliz Santiago's trial. For a more detailed account of Wetli's testimony at Nixzaliz's trail, click HERE.)
By: Dovesblood
On Monday, February 25th. 2008, the defense's medical examiner Dr. Charles Wetli stated Nixzmary Brown wasn't starved and tried to prove it by showing 21 or 22 photos he'd taken under a microscope of Nixzmary's autopsy tissues and cells.
When the giant video screen rolled down the photos were put under a projector. Defense co-counsel, Barry Deonarine, stood next to Wetli and aided him in using the projector. One photo was showing the presence of fat cells which he said people who are being starved don't have.
He also said that when people are starved, there's a chemical called "acetone" that's released into the blood. He said since Nixzmary didn't have it, this and the presence of fat cells proves she wasn't being starved.
Now I'm no medical expert, but I've watched enough Oprah shows to know that when you're trying to lose weight, you must eat because if you don't, your body goes into starvation mode and hold's onto fat cells because your body doesn't know when it's going to get food again.
On cross examination on Tuesday by Asst. D.A. Linda Weinman, Wetli admitted he didn't know what part of the body the cells were taken from and conceded it's possible they came from the buttocks which contains more fat cells than any other part of the body.
The prosecution on cross exam tried to put on common sense argument by showing crime scene and autopsy photos of little Nixzmary with her limbs looking like bone covered with skin, her shoulder bone and hips protruding from her body, the way a victim at Aushwitz's would look. The photos were meant to appeal to the jurors emotions as well as common sense.
Dr. Wetli also said that while Nixzmary was abused, she didn't die from Child Abuse Syndrome. He said you can only put that on a death certificate if there's no clear cause of death. In her case there is a clear cause: blunt force trauma to the head.
Here's why both sides are splitting hairs over this: If she died of child abuse syndrome, the jury would have to convict Cesar of murder since he also abused her, but, if she died of blunt force trauma to the head causing a subdural hematoma ( bleeding on the brain) the jury would have to acquit Cesar of murder since there's no proof he, not Nixzaliz, hit her on the head. They'd probably convict him of a lesser bullshit charge.
Dr. Wetli also said he went to the Medical Examiner's office with a friend of his, retired pathologist, Dr. Miller Bass. Dr. Bass is a short little man with gnarled fingers, who walks with a cane. He's been sitting in as a specatator at the trial and doses off during testimony. Defense lawyer, Jeff Schwartz said to Dr. Wetli concerning him going with Dr. Bass to view Nixzmary's autopsy tissues "aren't two heads better than one"? - Infering to the jury that since two pathologists agree on the same thing, it must be true. I thought to myself, "not when one of those heads is sitting in the back of the room sleeping."
I heard Dr. Bass got fired from his previous job. When the prosecutor brought that fact up, the judge wouldn't allow Wetli to say why.
The prosecution got Dr. Wetli to say that if he were being paid his normal fee for consultation, the price for the past two days of his testimony would be $10,000. He said he was testifying at a reduced rate, but wouldn't say what it was. I thought to myself "What's reduced, $9,999 "?
For me, the most disturbing part of his testimony was the cross examination when we learned that a rape kit had been done on little Nixzmary's dead body. I thought to myself "that's desecrating the body, that's raping her all over again". She didn't even have any dignity in death.
Little did I know, the worst was yet to come when the prosecution inferred Cesar forced little Nixzmary to have oral sex with him. I shook my head in disgust and sat there silently grieving for her. I wanted to put my arms around Nixzmary and hug her and protect her with my very life if I had to, but at the same time, I wanted to get up out of my seat and go kill Cesar.
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