Blood samples compared

Press, 13 April 1989, Page 20

Blood samples compared

PA Auckland Blood of the same grouping as that of a man found battered to death in Vogel Lane was found on the footwear of the three men accused of his murder, the High Court at Auckland was told. A D.S.I.R. forensic scientist, Dr Helen Doors, told the Court the blood of the victim, Robert Shattky, was Group A, common to 40 per cent of the country’s population. Further analysis showed it was type PGM, common to 15 per cent of the population. Three men — Jimmy James Tihi, aged 20, Anto-

nio Montino Maciana, aged 18, and Roy David Prince, aged 20 — have all denied murdering Mr Shattky, aged 26, last July. Blood tests showed they all had Group O blood. . Dr Doors found a heavy smearing of Group A PGM oh Maciana’s left boot. She also found Group A blood on Prince’s left shoe and heavy Group A bloodstaining on Tihi’s boot. Blood had also seeped through to his sock.

Dr Doors also found Group A blood on a lump of concrete found near Mr Shattky’s body in Vogel Lane and bloodstains of

the same group at the base of a nearby concrete wall.

She found little blood on Maciana’s belt which the prosecution said was wrapped around Mr Shattky’s neck. Under cross-examination by Maciana’s lawyer, Mr Murray Gibson, she agreed it was reasonable to assume Maciana’s leather belt would be soaked in blood because of the injuries Mr Shattky received. A pathologist, Dr Warwick Smeaton, said serious injuries to head, brain, face and neck had resulted in Mr Shattky’s death.