Dead man's DNA found on Craig Pope's clothes, expert testifies

A man accused of murder was arrested with the victim's blood on his pants.

A DNA expert testifying Tuesday afternoon in the second-degree murder trial of Craig Pope said onebloodstainon his pants matched Jonathan Collins, while two were his own blood and one was a mixture of two people.

Louise Cloutier, a DNA forensic analyst with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police crime lab in Ottawa, said Pope's DNA was also found inside a taxi cab spotted fleeing the scene of the fatal incident.

Pope is accused of stabbing Collins during a street fight on Sept. 7, 2017.

He was arrested within an hour of the stabbing, after being dropped off by a taxi in the centre of St. John's.

There is now DNA evidence, surveillance footage and an eyewitness linking the two men together, both in the hours leading up to Collins's deathand the immediate aftermath.

Cloutieralso testified about two knives discovered during the investigation. She said neither tested positive for blood.

Weapon struck key artery

Earlier on Tuesday morning, medical examiner Simon Avis said a knifecame tostop 11 centimetres beneath the surface ofCollins's skin, rupturing the largest arteryin the stomach region.

A punctured abdominal aorta would have sent the 36-year-old Collins into a state of irreversible shock within a couple minutes. Past that point, there was little chance to save his life.

"He had lost a tremendous amount of blood," saidAvis, who conducted the autopsy.

Avis brought a booklet of photos with him. Inside were gruesome pictures of Collins lying on the doctor's exam table with a one-inch incision to the lower left side of his abdomen.

Some jurors hesitated as they flipped through the photos. Pope took one lookat a picture of Collins's body and laid the booklet to the side.

Collins's parents were absent from the courtroom for the first time in the trial, which is now in its second week.

Avis started by testifyingto the obvious Collins died of a single stab wound.

Doctors went to great lengths

He went on to describe the critical nature of the injury. All the blood in the human body circulates in about a minute. When you rupture one of the body'slargest aortas, time is of the essence.

After Collins was taken to hospital, doctors did everything they could to replenish the blood helost.

Avis said they hooked him up to IV bags of blood and fluidsthrough "every potential access point," opened his chest and massaged his heart, but couldn't save him.

Avis also revealed the results of a toxicity report done on Collins after his death.

The first police officer on scene believed Collins might be having an opiate overdose, so he gave him Naloxone to revive him. Avis said the tests showed the presence of one opioid the addiction treatment drug methadone.

Avis saidother factors in the test indicated the methadone was used as part of atreatment program, as opposed to illicit use.

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