Closing arguments set to begin in manslaughter trial of Brayden Bushby

Brayden Bushby's lawyer called no evidence in his defence of the 21-year-old who has admitted to throwing a trailer hitch from a passing car at a First Nations woman in Thunder Bay, Ont., in January 2017. 

Barbara Kentner, a 34-year-old mother and member of the Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation died six months later. The blow from the hitch ruptured her small intestine.

A forensic pathologist, Dr. Toby Rose, told the court that Kentner's death was a consequence of being struck in the stomach with the trailer hitch, but Bushby's lawyer, George Joseph, contested that conclusion in his cross-examination on Wednesday.

"I think we can all agree that poor Miss Kentner was struck by a trailer hitch in some senseless act that ruptured her small intestine," Joseph said, before going on to question if a delay in seeking medical attention for the injury could be the cause of the subsequent health problems that led to her death.

Rose answered by saying the delay "wouldn't matter" because the injury itself prompted the cascade of unfortunate medical outcomes.

"It may not matter medically, but it may matter from a legal stand point," Joseph countered.

On the first day of the trial, Joseph asked Kentner's sister, Melissa, who was with Barbara on the night of the assault, why she had waited until the following day to take her to the hospital.

Melissa told the court that Barbara had said she just wanted to go home that night. 

"If a person who has an injury … becomes a quadriplegic and if that person dies many years later as a result of quadraplegia, then the injury is still an underlying cause of death," Rose said.

In his hours-long cross-examination, Joseph led the pathologist through a series of Kentner's medical and psychiatric reports, to make his case that Kentner's underlying health conditions, including end-stage liver disease ultimately killed her.

"We know that people suffering from end stage liver disease and requiring surgery have poor outcomes, but the real issue is when do they deteriorate?" he asked Rose, questioning how much the injury from the assault "hastened" Kentner's death.

"A gunshot wound to the head is a medical certainty how that person died," Joseph said, suggesting that in Kentner's case too much time had elapsed between the injury and her death to be certain about the cause.

"If she never suffered that injury, she still could have died on that day, that would be correct," Rose said before agreeing with Joseph that a different pathologist might have reached a different conclusion about the cause of Kentner's death.

Rose clarified her conclusions in re-examination from assistant Crown attorney Andrew Sadler, saying that a bacterial infection in Kentner's abdomen had been "grumbling along" since the surgery to repair her ruptured intestine and, along with pneumonia was the leading cause of death.

Closing arguments in the case are scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. on Thursday and are expected to take the full day in court.

There is no mandatory minimum sentence for the manslaughter charge that Bushby is facing. The maximum sentence is life in prison.