Warning: This post contains graphic details of injuries from a violent attack. 

On the seventh day of the double-murder trial of Jason Anthony Warren, a forensic pathologist described the extensive violent injuries he found during autopsies of Dorothy Ulrich and Suzanne Seemann, the two women killed on the same morning back in September 2012.

Special Prosecutor Paul Sequeira, from Mendocino County, continued to lay out evidence tying Warren to the brutal murder of Ulrich in her Hoopa home and, roughly an hour later, the allegedly deliberate collision with three women and a dog running along Myrtle Ave. north of Eureka, which resulted in the death of Seemann and the dog and grievous injuries to fellow runners Terri Vroman Little and Jessica Hunt.

As for the defense, Glenn Brown with the county’s Alternate Counsel office continued his representation of Warren by questioning some of the details in the evidence presented, but he has yet to succeed in destabilizing the weight of evidence against his client.

Suzie Seemann running in the Trinidad-to-Clam Beach event in 2009. Photo courtesy Hank Seemann.

The day’s first witness, forensic pathologist Dr. Ikechi Ogan, testified that in his postmortem examination of Seemann he found a pattern of blunt force injury with abrasions, contusions and lacerations on her head, torso and extremities, plus a dislocated shoulder, skull fractures, punctured lungs, broken ribs and more. He outlined those injuries in great detail while the prosecution displayed photos taken during the autopsy.

He also relayed the “story” that the evidence was telling him. For example, a bruised and scraped area on Seemann’s forehead told Dr. Ogan that she fell forward, landing with a strong impact on a rough surface. A deep laceration and contusion on her back thigh was consistent with the height of the bumper on the Kia Spectra that Warren is alleged to have stolen from Ulrich.

Sequeira asked if that injury was consistent with being hit in the back of the leg with a car.

“That’s what it is, sir,” Dr. Ogan replied coolly.

Scrapes and “round pockmarks” on the back of Seemann’s elbow “told me the story of impact,” the doctor continued. It was a fall with motion on a gravelly surface.

While this evidence was being presented, Warren sat at the defense table with his head down, apparently drawing or writing with a small pencil. Periodically throughout the day Warren would reach out to the nearby bailiff with one of these pencils in hand, and the bailiff would pull out a new, sharper one from a drawer and trade with Warren.

Dorothy Ulrich. Photo courtesy Shirley Ortega.

Dr. Ogan continued his testimony with descriptions from the Ulrich autopsy, which revealed a different, more complex method to murder. Previous testimony has suggested that the murder weapon was a samurai-style sword, and Ulrich’s body showed signs of blunt-force trauma, chopping-type injuries and stab wounds. The back of her head had a large laceration and skull fracture, which showed that, “It had to be [caused by] a weapon that had some weight to it,” Ogan said.

Ulrich also suffered at least nine different lacerations to her scalp, six stab wounds to her torso — four of which were to the back — and defensive wounds on her hands and arms. Ulrich’s lung and heart were punctured, and she had small broken blood vessels in her eyes, known as petechiae, which suggest strangulation, choking or suffocation, Ogan said.

Multiple people in the courtroom, including Ulrich’s mother, got up and left to avoid the graphic images from the autopsy. Ogan described the stab wounds in detail, explaining how some suggested a double-edged blade while others showed evidence of a hilt, though he also explained how those two types of injuries can be caused by the same weapon if it penetrates to different depths.

Ogan’s interpretation of the evidence, he said, was that the injuries were caused with a “heavy, sharp weapon, such as a machete, an ax or a sword,” and the cause of death was “many sharp- and blunt-force injuries,” including a blow to the back of the head that fractured the base of her skull.

On cross-examination, Brown asked Ogan to go back over some of the details in his testimony, with particular emphasis on the petechiae, or broken blood vessels in the eyes. Brown suggested that those could have been caused by yelling, bleeding, a heavy strike or even just lying face-down. Ogan allowed that he couldn’t say definitively that Ulrich had been strangled. Brown made no attempt to argue that Ulrich wasn’t stabbed and bludgeoned to death.

Brown also had questions about the Seemann autopsy. He noted that Dr. Ogan had said the pockmarks found in her elbow were consistent with impact with with a rough surface, which is not the same as saying they were caused by impact with a rough surface. 

“See the difference?” Brown asked.

Ogan was nonplussed. “It’s a semantic difference,” he said.

The next witness was Dr. John Van Speybroeck, a general surgeon who examined both Jessica Hunt and Terri Vroman Little, the joggers injured in the same impact that killed Seemann. Both suffered broken legs, with Hunt’s an “open” or compound fracture of both the tibia and fibula. Hunt also had brain injuries, lacerations to her scalp, ear and elbow, ligament damage in her knee, a broken foot and many bruises and abrasions.

Vroman Little didn’t fare much better, suffering a cranial nerve injury, broken lower leg, scalp abrasions, a bruised lung and a concussion. 

Brown had no cross-examination questions for Dr. Van Speybroeck.

The day’s final witness was Kay Belschner, a senior criminologist with the California Department of Justice, who detailed the evidence recovered from the Kia Spectra. When she examined the car at Humboldt Towing shortly after the incident, it had extensive damage, including dents, broken headlights and a shattered windshield. And closer examination revealed a wealth of physical evidence.

There were three “smears” on the hood, as if something heavy had slid up them, she said. Apparent blood stains were found on windows, the windshield, the side of the car and the interior. A lock of hair that had been apparently chopped off proved to be consistent with Ulrich’s hair. Animal hair recovered from the car’s bumper was consistent with that of Maggie, the dog who’d died in the collision. 

Belschner also recovered incriminating evidence from the clothes Warren was wearing when he was arrested. Broken glass consistent with windshield glass was found in his jacket pockets, cap, shoes, long-sleeve shirt and shorts. Fibers from his jacket were consistent with fibers found on the driver’s side seat of the Kia. And Warren had apparent blood stains on his tank top, shoes and long-sleeve shirt. The samples were sent to Department of Justice labs in Redding and Chico for analysis.

One other piece of evidence: Dorothy Ulrich’s severed, “blood-soaked” ponytail was found in the hood of her sweatshirt.

Again Brown asked for clarification on some of the evidence during cross-examination. He asked Belschner a few questions about dents and window shatters in the Kia before Judge Timothy Cissna said time was up for the day. The trial will resume Tuesday morning.

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