Just before 10 a.m. Wednesday, day three of John Curtis "Jay" Tolson’s trial reconvened at the Dare County Courthouse in Manteo to hear
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8/31/23
Just before 10 a.m. Wednesday, day three of John Curtis “Jay” Tolson’s trial reconvened at the Dare County Courthouse in Manteo to hear four witness testimonies.
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The prosecution team, led by Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Bland, called their first witness to the stand, Trisha Cahoon. Though they were cousins, Cahoon said she thought of Hartleben like a sister. When Cahoon began to cry on the witness stand, Judge Foster dismissed the jury and scolded Cahoon.
“I know you’re upset. I know you’ve mourned. But it’s been three years. I need you to pull it together. I won’t have your tears influence [the jury]. You’ve known this is coming and you’ve prepared for it,” Judge Foster said.
The jury returned to the courtroom and Cahoon continued her testimony.
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Cahoon explained the chain of events leading up to her discovery of Hartleben’s injuries and subsequent death. She was notified by Hartleben’s mother on July 23 that her cousin was at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. When Cahoon arrived at the hospital on July 24, she said Hartleben was unresponsive to any kind of stimuli. She was connected to a ventilator and cardiac monitor, and a portion of her head had been shaved from the craniectomy, a neurosurgical procedure that removes part of the skull to relieve pressure from the brain.
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The prosecution asked Cahoon about her communication with Tolson. She said she reached out after the incident to find out what happened but he never responded. Tolson did not attend Hartleben’s funeral. The defense, led by Assistant Public Defense Attorney Christan Routten, began to cross examine the witness, asking about her communication with Tolson. Though Cahoon said she has never spoken to him, the defense read Cahoon’s own Facebook messages to Tolson, including: “Mother
er you’d better run as fast as you can. It’s your night.” Another read “Do not pick up this guy hitchhiking. He will murder you.”
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Tolson’s lawyer then moved on to discuss Cahoon’s social media activities, which included a “Justice for LeeAnne” Facebook page and a YouTube channel where she posted a Facebook Live video tour in Hartleben’s Kitty Hawk home discussing her cousin’s death. When asked if LeeAnne was an alcoholic, Cahoon said she could not answer that because she didn’t live with her. She also declined knowledge of whether Hartleben drank daily.
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The state then called to the witness stand Dr. Jessica Burgess, trauma surgeon at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, where Hartleben was medi-flighted on July 22. Upon arriving at the hospital, Burgess examined Hartleben, who was placed on alpha alert, or the highest level of alert. The doctor said there was a significant amount of blood coming from Hartleben’s nose and mouth. Labs were performed that revealed no alcohol in her system. Labs also revealed that Hartleben had liver failure.
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The doctor added that the injury came from “some sort of force” that caused the brain to tear away from the skull, causing the blood vessels to tear away and bleed. Though the craniectomy was successful in removing the blood and pressure from Hartleben’s brain, she was not able to breathe on her own, her blood pressure was low, her heart rate was high, and there was lactic acidosis in her blood, evidence of severe liver failure.
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Hartleben succumbed to her injuries on July 25 after three days in the hospital.
After a short break, the court reconvened at about 11:45 a.m. Burgess confirmed that Hartleben’s liver condition was worsening while she was at the hospital. She was dismissed from the witness stand, and the prosecution called Assistant Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Nicole Masian of the Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Masian is a forensic pathologist, which she described as a position “where medicine meets the law.” She performed Hartleben’s autopsy on July 28, 2020 and determined the cause and manner of death.
She explained her initial observations – evidence of blunt force trauma to the head with subsequent surgery, multiple bruises, swelling and jaundiced skin.
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Then she discussed bruises that she did not find ordinary. Masian said the presence of multiple bruises on the backs of Hartleben’s forearms and hands raises the question of “defense or scrimmage-type activities.” She described scrimmage activities as “striking a blow as opposed to defending a blow” and raised her fists to the jury in a punching motion to demonstrate.
The medical examiner added that bruises on the inner thighs, where she noted at least half a dozen, would be unusual from a fall or a medical intervention. She mentioned that Hartleben had a laceration inside her upper lip that she could not date specifically but it was in the healing stage and could have been caused by blunt force injury.
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The autopsy revealed significant liver disease and blunt force trauma to the head. “Something blunt caused bleeding inside her head,” Masian said. The bleeding, called a subdural hematoma, result from tears in bridging veins in the brain. The subdural hematoma, Masian said, was about the size of the palm of her hand. “It takes a significant amount of force … to cause that tear,” she said, adding later that “the brain would have to rattle considerably to cause that tearing.”
Liver damage means she would have been prone to bleed excessively, Masian said.
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She also noted that lab tests that she ordered did not reveal drugs or ethanol (alcoholic beverages) in the blood.
During cross examination, Tolson’s defense lawyers had Masian confirm that in the tests performed, Hartleben did not have any other broken bones or fractures anywhere else. In her final autopsy report, Masian declared the cause of death as “complications of blunt force trauma to the head with hepatic cirrhosis with clinical hepatic failure contributing,” and ruled that the manner of death was “undetermined.”
The defense clarified that blunt force trauma does not mean it’s intentional. Masian confirmed that she means blunt as opposed to sharp; trauma as opposed to natural. Blunt force trauma can be from a fall, from striking an object, or a shove that can result in a head striking the wall. “It’s not clear what it was, but the injury was clearly due to blunt force trauma,” Masian reiterated.
Masian had five options for the manner of death: natural, suicide, homicide, accident, or undetermined. “It was clearly not a natural death. There was no evidence to determine suicide, and insufficient evidence for me to classify it as a homicide or an accident,” she told the court.
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After another 15 minute recess, the final witness, Nicholas Bateman, was called to the stand. Bateman owns a home remodeling company and employed Tolson off and on for several years. Tolson is also related to Bateman’s ex-wife.
Bateman said that after learning of the situation on Facebook, he offered Tolson a ride to the Kitty Hawk Police Department on the night of July 24. He picked him up at the Red Drum convenience store in Buxton, and the two spoke a little on the ride.
“We talked a little bit. He didn’t have a whole lot to say,” Bateman recalled. He described Tolson’s demeanor as scared and shocked, and said he didn’t eat much of the food that Bateman brought him. “He said they were drinking, Mr. Tolson and LeeAnn I guess is her name. Maybe there were some pills involved. He said she stumbled back and hit her head on the couch,” Bateman recalled from his July 24, 2020 conversation.
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After it was announced in court that there would not be a session Thursday due to weather, notification was sent early Thursday morning that proceedings would convene after all.
Read more at:
Tolson trial day three: Testimonies from family member, medical experts and former employer - The Coastland Times
