Rowbotham's injuries detailed in court

A Winnipeg jury is hearing graphic descriptions – and viewing numerous photographs – of the fatal injuries suffered by Beverly Rowbotham.

Rowbotham was killed in October 2000 after being hit in the head 16 times with a hatchet or an axe. Her body was then taken from the backyard of her St. Andrews home and left in the back of her vehicle in a Selkirk parking lot.

Her husband, Mark Stobbe, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder.

Dr. John MacDonald, a forensic pathologist, was the one who conducted Rowbotham’s autopsy. He told jurors Tuesday how he found 27 different areas of injury, including 16 "chop wounds" to the head.

MacDonald also detailed how two of Rowbotham’s fingers were severed in the attack, likely as she tried to defend herself.

"This was probably a defensive injury, where the victim knew something bad was about to happen and put up her hand to defend herself," said MacDonald.

This is the fourth week of evidence in a case expected to last until the end of March.

Jurors have previously heard from a witness who was cycling home from his evening shift in Selkirk in October 2000 when he spotted a vehicle in a car lot. He knew the owners of the business and initially thought it was one of them. Upon closer inspection he realized he didn't recognize the person sitting in the driver's seat of the light-coloured vehicle, which had its headlights on.

"I could see it was a bigger built person, a male," said Beaton, who weighed about 260 pounds at the time. He told jurors last Friday the man he saw was even larger. "It looked like he had on a big bulky jacket," he said. Beaton added the man had a long nose and wavy hair.

"It looked like he was slouched over by the steering wheel, like he was looking for something, thinking of something," he said. He then identified Stobbe in court as either the man he saw, or someone with a similar build.

Beaton believes the night in question was the same night Rowbotham was killed, but said he can't be 100 per cent certain. Beaton said he waited until 2004 before going to police, believing what he saw that night wasn't likely relevant to the homicide. But when police issued another appeal for information on the unsolved case, Beaton says he stepped forward.

Stobbe's lawyer, Tim Killeen, suggested Beaton has become confused about what he saw because it was more than 11 years ago. He asked Beaton whether it might have been a woman he saw in the vehicle.

"A man's build is different than a lady's," Beaton replied. Still, he conceded he didn't have his glasses on that night and was only viewing a silhouette from a distance. He said he may have only looked at the shadowy figure for between 10 and 90 seconds total.

His evidence prompted a warning to jurors from Queen's Bench Justice Chris Martin about the nature and value of Beaton's testimony.

"The case against Mr. Stobbe is circumstantial. You must be very cautious on relying on eyewitness testimony to find Mr. Stobbe guilty. In the past there have been miscarriages of justice, persons have been wrongfully convicted, because so-called eyewitnesses have made mistakes in identifying persons they believe responsible," said Martin. He described Beaton's testimony as "very generic, very sparse."

Jurors have already heard a 69-minute interview Stobbe gave to police in the hours after Rowbotham's body was found. He claims to have fallen asleep watching a baseball game on television after Rowbotham left the home to complete a grocery shopping trip that had been cut short earlier in the day. He said he awoke around 2:30 a.m. to find only himself and their two children in the residence. That set off a series of frantic phone calls to police, the hospital and family and friends.

Stobbe admitted to some marital issues with Rowbotham, especially after they moved to St. Andrews, north of Winnipeg, from Regina earlier that summer after Stobbe landed a communications job with the provincial NDP government.

He said Rowbotham was "unhappy" for the first few weeks, largely due to the constant rainfall and mosquitoes. Stobbe said they had gone to marriage counselling on three occasions in Regina, but they stopped because they were doing so well.

Jurors also heard RCMP monitored Stobbe in the days following the killing, even following him to Saskatchewan for his wife's funeral.

www.mikeoncrime.com

Justice reporter Mike McIntrye is back in court today covering the second-degree murder trial of Mark Stobbe who is accused of killing his wife Beverly Rowbotham in October 2000.

Follow his tweets below: