Doctor who tried to help Renée Sweeney says she was 'warm to the touch,' but already dead

Dr. Krista Jonas slipped a plastic bag over her hand and felt for a pulse.

The young woman lying in the pool of blood behind the counter of the video store still felt warm. But there were no signs of life.

"There really wasn't anything to do," she testified at the Renée Sweeney murder trial in Sudbury on Monday.

Jonas worked in the emergency room at the Memorial Hospital in January 1998. 

During a day off, she was eating in a Paris Street bagel shop, when there was a "big commotion" about someone being injured at an adult video store further down the strip mall, and she went to see if she could help.

Jonas remembers the store being in "disarray" with video boxes strewn on the floor and blood splatter.

The jury, and a large crowd of citizens in the courtroom, were shown a series of crime scene photos, showing Sweeney's body, as well as blood-stained carpets and a blood splattered stool inside the video store. 

Carol Gosselin went into the video store that morning, calling for Sweeney, who was a regular at the bagel shop where Gosselin worked.

There was no answer and then she found Sweeney's body behind the counter.

Gosselin told the court that she left and got a first aid kit out of her car and went back to the video store, attempting to put pressure on the wounds in her neck.

"We tried to help her," Gosselin testified, her voice shaking,

"But unfortunately there wasn't much that we could do for her."

Steven Wright, 43, is charged with second-degree murder and is standing trial some four years after his arrest.