A local woman killed in a 2014 triple shooting likely would not have survived the gunshot wound to the head she sustained no matter what actions were taken, the associate medical examiner testified Thursday in the first-degree murder trial of one of two men accused in her death.
Dr. Adam Craig told the eight-woman, four-man Garland County Circuit Court jury that Mayela Mata, 26, died from a single gunshot, with the bullet entering on the right side of her scalp "just above the level of her ear" and exiting on the left side of her scalp, passing through her skull and both hemispheres of her brain.
"There was probably no way to have saved her life," he said, noting Mata's skull was fractured, along with the suborbital ridges above her eyes, and she sustained massive bleeding around the brain.
Craig's testimony came on the third day of the trial of Steven Leroy Swanigan, 33, of Hot Springs, who in addition to the murder count, punishable by up to life in prison, is also charged with two counts of first-degree battery for gunshot wounds sustained by Mata's 20-month-old daughter and a visiting friend, Antouin Bond, during the April 30, 2014, shooting at Mata's apartment at 200 Springwood Road.
An alleged accomplice, Benjamin Mickey Pitts, 28, also of Hot Springs, is scheduled to stand trial on the same charges Oct. 23 in circuit court.
Craig said there was no evidence the gunshot that killed Mata was fired at close range, noting there were no signs of powder or soot hitting the skin normally associated with a contact wound. He could not say for certain that it was "a distance shot," meaning from 3 or more feet away, because the victim's hair could have blocked some of the powder.
He said Mata also had some minor blunt force trauma injuries to her nose, upper lip and chin, which he noted could have been sustained by her face hitting the floor or something hard after falling down.
In earlier testimony, Bobby Humphries, a latent print examiner from the state crime lab, testified about a shoe print found on the driver's side floorboard of a 1995 Cadillac Deville Garland County sheriff's investigators believe was the vehicle used by the suspects.
Humphries said investigators were not able to give him a shoe to compare it to, but he ran the "footwear impression" through a shoe print database called "Sole Mate," which includes about 32,000 different shoe patterns, and matched it to a Ralph Lauren Polo sport boot. "It was the only match for it I could find," he said.
Deputy Prosecutor Kara Petro, in her opening statement to the jury Tuesday, had noted they had recovered photos from Swanigan's cellphone that showed him wearing the same brand of boots.
The trial is scheduled to resume today with Judge John Homer Wright presiding. Chief Deputy Prosecutor Joe Graham is also representing the state and Swanigan is represented by attorneys Bobby Digby and John Landis of Little Rock.
Local on 10/13/2017