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By
D.C. Witness Staff
- March 8, 2019
Court
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Daily Stories
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Homicides
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Suspects
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During a trial March 7, a medical examiner walked a jury through her examination of a murder victim who was allegedly bound, raped and repeatedly stabbed.
El Hadji Toure, 30, is charged with first-degree murder while armed, first-degree sexual abuse and robbery while armed, among other offenses, for his alleged role in the death of 34-year-old Corrina Mehiel in an apartment on the 600 block of 14th Street, NE in March of 2017.
The medical examiner told the jury that Mehiel sustained at least 37 stab wounds to her neck, but said she couldn’t account for the number of stab wounds that contributed to a “gaping hole” in Mehiel’s neck. She said Mehiel’s death was not instantaneous and that she could have lived for a few minutes up to an hour before succumbing to her injuries.
Based on the shape of the stab wound, the examiner said the murder weapon could have been the knife that police located in Toure’s car. When the prosecution pointed out that the knife had a broken tip, the examiner said with or without the tip the knife is still” consistent” with the weapon used to create Mehiel’s wounds.
The examiner also detailed the items used to bind Mehiel, which included multiple shirts, bed sheets and a pair of leggings. She said that based on the lack of bruising, it was likely that Mehiel was bound around the time she died.
When asked about the sex kit evidence in the case, the examiner said that Mehiel had abrasions inside her vagina as well as on her anus.
According to the prosecution, area surveillance footage places Toure walking in the direction of Mehiel’s apartment around the time she was packing her car. The prosecution said that after Toure sexually assaulted and killed Mehiel, he stole her credit cards and withdrew money from ATM machines in Virginia and Maryland.
The defense refutes the prosecution’s claim and says Toure never hurt Mehiel. They also say the police were under pressure to make an arrest, had “tunnel vision” and failed to investigate other leads.
The trial is scheduled to continue on March 11.