Blood stain pattern expert speaks at Suarez Noa trial

Warning: images from this trial are graphic and disturbing.

Thirty-six-year-old Tania Cowell was stabbed to death by her boyfriend Haiden Suarez Noa in 2013, while their five-month old son was nearby. Suarez Noa has pleaded guilty to manslaughter, but says he had no intention of murdering Cowell.

On Tuesday, the jury heard evidence from a blood stain pattern expert and learned more about how Cowell died and what happened afterwards.

Sergeant Scott Collings explained to the jury that Tania Cowell must have been stabbed in the threshold between the living room and the bed and bath rooms of her apartment. Most of the blood on the walls is two feet from the ground or lower.

“The deceased is down low to the ground and there’s movement. It’s dynamic,” Collings said.

The jury has heard Cowell was stabbed 11 times and that her carotid as well as her pulmonary and aorta arteries were fatally pierced.

Collings could tell that Cowell was carried as she was dying, from the hall to the living room, as there were drips on the floor from an artery but no drag marks and no blood on Cowell’s feet. Bloody footprints came from Suarez Noa who was photographed the next day when he turned himself into police in Guelph, carrying his also bloody baby.

The blood on Cowell’s body had been wiped from her face, chest and arm, using something like a baby wipe. A cell phone was found on the dining room table, but blood spatter shows it was close to the attack and then moved. Blood-spattered pyjama pants found in the bedroom had also been moved. Similarly, a baby bib found by the kitchen sink was stained with blood that came directly from a wound, not from being wiped up from an inanimate surface.

On Wednesday, the trial expects to see the recorded confession Haiden Suarez Noa made to police after he turned himself in.