There has been a lot of controversy in the Chief Medical Examiner position for too long, so I'm not inclined to put a lot of faith in the current one. After skimming some of her testimony, I'm not exactly impressed. She said that it's quite possible the victims were dead at their home, but it's also possible they weren't. She said the ash in the barrels may be from a child, and may be from an adult. If she hadn't been told that a child and two adults were likely burned in the barrel, would she have been able to say that? No one needs a medical degree to say that there's so much blood at the first crime scene that the victims may have been mortally wounded, and the statement that they may have been alive at the Airdrie acreage seems self-serving, and to appease what police and prosecutors want to hear.
I wasn't surprised that the suspect's lawyer wanted some sort of clear answer as to whether the victims were alive when they left the first crime scene. It's unfortunately that the Chief Medical Examiner could not give a clear answer based on the amount of blood at the crime scene. Surely she would know that after losing X number of litres of blood, life is over, but she couldn't answer that question. Why not?
