Source: The Straits Times
TODDLER Natalie Nikie Alisyia Sallehan had 58 bruises and abrasions on her head, body and limbs, a forensic pathologist told the High Court yesterday, the fifth day of her father’s murder trial.
But what caused her death was a tear in a major vein that let 40ml of blood collect inside the heart sac and prevented the heart from pumping.
The 0.5-cm-long rupture found on the blood vessel was a “life-threatening event”, the pathologist who conducted the autopsy, Dr Teo Eng Swee, told the court yesterday.
The two-year-old’s father, Sallehan Allaudin, 27, is accused of causing her death by kicking and stamping on her.
Also taking the stand was the paediatrician who saw Nikie in the emergency room, Dr Kao Pao Tang. Dr Kao, who had been given the autopsy finding, said that such ruptures are usually seen in cases of a fall from a height or “high-energy, high-velocity accidents”.
Nikie was assaulted on Jan 6 at her home in Boon Lay.
Sallehan is said to have flown into a rage when he came home to find that the eldest of his three daughters had destroyed his cigarettes.
He has admitted to police that he slapped her face and punched her body.
But his wife, Madam Rozanah Mohamed Yusoff, has testified that he also kicked and stamped on the girl.
Yesterday, Sallehan grew sombre as his daughter’s autopsy photographs were displayed.
Taking the court through the autopsy, Dr Teo showed the rupture in Nikie’s inferior vena cava – the largest vein in the body that carries blood from the lower body to the heart.
The blood leaked into a sac that contains the heart, constraining it from expanding and contracting freely. The hole in the vein would also have caused a drop in blood pressure.
Dr Teo said he also found 22 scars from healed wounds on her body which might have been caused by someone pinching her, insect bites, or the more remote possibility of cigarette burns.
He listed 58 other external injuries such as bruises and abrasions on her head, face, arms, back, abdomen, genitalia and anus.
There were no signs that Nikie had been sexually violated; however, there were injuries to the area outside her anus which could have been caused by the passing of hard stools, someone forcing her buttocks apart or from impact of a blunt object.
An internal examination showed that almost all the bruises had been sustained recently.
Dr Teo noted that there was quite a lot of bruising on her face, which was more likely caused by punching rather than slapping.
Other signs of blunt force trauma included injuries to the beginning of the large intestine, which were not immediately fatal, and bruising in the lungs.
Dr Teo said the lungs would react to such injuries by producing a fluid, which could flow out of the nose and mouth, tinged with blood.
Madam Rozanah has testified that Nikie bled from the nose after the assault.
Dr Teo continues on the stand today.
