Missionary’s death caused by multiple chop wounds, says pathologist
Published:Friday | July 7, 2023 | 12:13 AMTanesha Mundle/Staff Reporter
ONE OF the two United States missionaries killed in 2016 in bushes in St Mary was chopped six times in the head after being shot in the chest.
Harold Nichols, 53, the court heard, died as a result of the multiple chop wounds.
The wounds, which included chops to the side of the head, over the left and right eyebrows, to an ear, and to the centre of the head, caused bleeding in the brain and a severing of Nichols’ skullcap, a pathologist disclosed yesterday.
But the expert witness, who conducted the post-mortem, testified yesterday in the Home Circuit Court, where Nichols’ accused killer, Andre Thomas, is on trial, that any one of the chop injuries could have caused Nichols’ death.
The witness said the injuries were inflicted with a very sharp weapon such as a machete and would have required a high degree of force.
As the grisly details were being shared, the short, slender-built defendant sat, for the most part, with his head bowed.
Nichols and Randy Hentzel, 48, both American missionaries, were found in Wentworth district, St Mary, between April 30 and May 1, 2016.
Both men had left their homes to visit a site where they would be working on a home as part of their charitable services in the parish.
The witness, further in his evidence, said that Nichols was shot in the chest and that it damaged his backbone.
In answer to the prosecutor’s question about the sequence of the injuries, the pathologist said that Nichols was shot before the chop wounds were inflicted.
Additionally, he said that the wound was not an “immediate fatal wound” and that it was possible that Nichols would have been able to move after he was shot.
According to the witness, no gunpowder burn was found on Nichols’ body, which indicates that the shooter was beyond two feet when the gun was fired.
Turning to the other victim, the pathologist testified that he sustained only one gunshot wound, which entered the back of his neck and exited through the corner of his mouth. The gunshot fractured the victim’s jaw.
But unlike Nichols, the witness said gunpowder burn was found on Hentzel’s body, which indicated that he was shot at close range. The gun, he said, would have been eight centimetres away from the point of the entry of the wound.
Thomas’ lawyer, Leroy Equiano, asked the witness under cross-examination whether he could say if the person who inflicted the wounds was angry at the time.
The witness, however, said he could not speak to the person’s psyche.
“This is somebody you would say want the person dead?” Equiano continued.
“Yes,” the witness answered.
The missionaries arrived in Jamaica in October 2002 as part of Christian Service International (CSI) missionaries before moving to Teams for Medical Missions in 2004.
Nichols’ wife, Terri, testified earlier in the trial that her husband was killed after they had returned to the country from a trip to Colombia to celebrate 25 years of marriage.
Hentzel was killed shortly after he returned to the island from the United States, where he, his wife, and five children had gone to “sort of recharge their batteries”.
Thomas was arrested in 2016, following the barbaric murder, which made international headlines, and was charged with two counts of murder, along with Dwight Henry.
However, Henry pleaded guilty and was sentenced in January to life in prison and ordered to serve 28 years in prison before being eligible for parole.
Henry is expected to start giving evidence on Monday when the trial is resumed.
Attorney-at-law Althea Freeman is also representing the defendant.