“Would you say less than three are by manual strangulation?”
“Yes.”
Thomas stood taller, and Noah could read his mind. He had hit paydirt. “Dr. Kapoor, how many autopsies have you personally performed on victims where you found the cause and manner of death as homicide by strangulation?”
“One.”
Thomas allowed himself a theatrical frown. “So the opinions you gave during your testimony regarding what you expected to find in a manual strangulation were not based on your actual experience, isn’t that correct?”
“Yes.” Dr. Kapoor pursed her lips unhappily.
“And, you testified that in your opinion, whoever killed the victim by strangulation was most likely an adult male, isn’t that what you said?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t it true that you have no idea of the age of that male?”
“Yes.” Dr. Kapoor pressed her glasses higher on her nose with an unpolished fingernail.
“The killer could also have been any size or weight, could he not?”
“Yes.”
“Furthermore, the killer could have been a very fit woman, couldn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“In fact, you can’t tell from the bruising whether the murder was committed by a man or a woman, can you?”
“No.”
“Dr. Kapoor, isn’t the most you can say for certain is that Anna was strangled by a person who was strong enough to strangle her with their bare hands?”
“Yes.”
“And you testified, did you not, that you could not determine the size of the killer’s hands by the bruises on Anna’s neck, isn’t that true?”
“Yes.”
“The most you could say for certain is that the hand was average in size, isn’t that correct?”
“Yes.”
“What is the average hand size for men?”
“Between six and eight inches.”
“I would assume that women’s hand sizes are generally smaller than men’s, isn’t that correct?”
“Yes.”
“And isn’t there an overlap between hand sizes for men and women?”
“Yes.”
“So in fact, you could not say for certain whether the hands of the killer belonged to a man or woman, isn’t that correct?”
“Yes.”
