Ibey’s lawyer suggests pathologist made ‘blunder’ during autopsy

A defence lawyer at Nikolas Ibey’s first-degree murder trial grilled a forensic pathologist Tuesday over what the lawyer called oversights that occurred during the autopsy done on the woman Ibey is accused of killing.

Ibey, 35, is charged in the Sept. 11, 2022, strangulation death of Savanna Pikuyak, 22, who was originally from Sanirajak and moved to Ottawa to study nursing at Algonquin College.

Pikuyak, who had been in the city for less than a week, was staying in a spare room of the house Ibey rented from his brother in Ottawa’s Nepean area, about two kilometres south of the college.

Ibey has pleaded not guilty. His jury trial is being held in Ottawa.

In court Tuesday, defence lawyer Ewan Lyttle suggested Crown witness and forensic pathologist Dr. James MacPherson had “made up” details during testimony he provided at a preliminary hearing in June 2023.

In one exchange Tuesday, Lyttle cited the hearing’s transcript in which the pathologist was asked about swabs taken from Pikuyak’s body during the autopsy.

“You swore to tell the truth, correct? At that hearing, you told the court under oath that you took the vaginal swab at the autopsy, right?” Lyttle said.

“Yes, that was a misrecollection on my part,” MacPherson replied.

MacPherson’s supervisor, forensic pathologist Dr. Jacqueline Parai, had actually taken the swabs. At the time, MacPherson was interning to become a forensic pathologist.

“You are not prepared to say you made it up?” Lyttle asked.

“No, again, it was a misrecollection,” MacPherson said.

“Are you prepared to say it was extremely careless?” Lyttle asked.

“No, I don’t believe it represents extreme carelessness,” MacPherson replied.

Lyttle responded, saying that in a first-degree murder trial where “people’s jeopardy is at stake, you don’t think it is careless to swear an oath and say that you did something you absolutely didn’t do?”

MacPherson said he took responsibility for the error and that he should have “better reviewed” the evidence list during his testimony at the hearing.

Lyttle pointed out that the preliminary hearing was the first time MacPherson had testified in court.

In another example, MacPherson incorrectly recalled the presence of an injury shown in a photo taken during the autopsy.

Lyttle called the error a “blunder.”

“It would have been much easier if we had seen it at the autopsy,” MacPherson acknowledged.

“It was a big mistake?” Lyttle asked.

“It was a mistake, yes,” MacPherson replied.

The jury trial, which opened Nov. 12, is in its second week and is expected to last until mid-December.

Heather Shacker, a forensic scientist at Toronto’s Centre of Forensic Sciences, is expected to testify Wednesday.