Rocky View County worker Colin Hough was shot three times after slowing down to investigate a burning stolen pickup truck east of Calgary, a pathologist said Monday.
But only one of the bullets was fatal, Dr. Caylea Foster told a Court of King’s Bench jury.
Foster testified she conducted an autopsy on Hough the day after he was shot at the intersection of Township Road 250 and Range Road 282 east of Calgary.
She told Crown prosecutor Photini Papadatou she found six bullet wounds on Hough’s body, three entry wounds and three exit wounds.
Foster labelled the injuries A to F, but acknowledged during cross-examination that she could not determine the order of the wounds.
But she said the injury she labeled C on its entry and F on its exit was the one that cost Hough his life.
That bullet struck Hough in the left chest, hit the fourth rib on his left side, causing a fracture of that bone, hit the upper lobe of his left chest and “perforated … the sac that surrounds the heart.”
“It struck the right side of the heart and created a large gaping hole,” Foster said.
Charged with second-degree murder in Hough’s Aug. 6, 2024, killing are Elijah Blake Strawberry and Arthur Wayne Penner.
The doctor said the injury to Hough’s heart would have caused massive internal bleeding, with nearly a litre of blood being found in his abdominal cavities.
“That amount of blood, approximately a litre or so, is considered significant. You’re essentially bleeding out into your own cavities,” Foster said.
She said the wound would have caused Hough’s death “on the order of minutes, or less.”
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The pathologist told Papadatou that Hough received two other bullet wounds, neither of which would have been fatal.
One of those struck the right side of Hough’s upper back and exited through his right shoulder, while the other entered his left arm and exited through his chest.
“Mr. Hough’s cause of death was the gunshot wound of the chest.”
During cross-examination by defence lawyers Rebecca Snukal and Alexandra Seaman, the witness agreed she could not determine the intent of the shooter or shooters at the time Hough was injured.
“You cannot say what a shooter was aiming at?” Snukal asked.
“No,” Foster said.
The doctor also agreed not all bullet wounds are fatal.
And she told Seaman Hough may not have immediately collapsed.
“Theoretically the decedent would have been able to run … for a very short period of time,” she said.