MASON CITY, IA --Two experts are taking the stand today in the trial of Edgar Concepcion Jr. They are talking about specific details they noticed both before and after the death of three-year-old Krystel Banes.Concepcion is accused of murdering and sexually abusing his cousin last July in Charles City.
Medical Response specialist, Dave Tice, is showing the court how he would perform CPR on any young child.
About 100 compressions a minute means a lot of pressure on a small girl's body. Autopsy photos of Krystel Banes show she did have bruises on her chest, but Tice says if you are performing CPR the right way there shouldn't be any bruising there. In fact, one responder said he saw the bruises before they started resuscitating.
"He told me afterwards that where his position he looked up and he saw it…that he saw some marks beneath the chin."
One thing tice does notice is Krystel's throat as he's trying to intubate. He says for children there are smaller tubes, but it took him three tries to find a tube to fit down Krystel's throat because it was larger than he expected. In his experience, this can mean damage to the throat.
"Sometimes I would think we have trauma to the area…that can cause some swelling."
Forensic Consultant Suzana Ryan discussed the process of finding DNA for an investigation.
But in this case, she says there isn't any DNA evidence.
"I would expect to see DNA in a manual strangulation case, being transferred from a suspect to a victim."
Ryan does add that samples can be affected if they are taken from clothes or hands that have been washed, or if someone vomits, those samples can be damaged.
It was known that on the day of Krystel's death she was throwing up. Ryan couldn't say for sure what factors could have affected DNA evidence in this case.
Court will resume Tuesday after the holiday.
