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Updated Sept. 21, 2006, 4:36 p.m. ET
Medical examiner: Mutilation is typically a male crime


LAS VEGAS — Clark County Medical Examiner Larry Simms says it is rare for a woman to mutilate a man.

Simms testified Wednesday that, although he couldn't rule out the possibility that a woman mutilated 43-year-old Duran Bailey, historically, mutilations are a "male on male" crime.

Prosecutors allege Kirstin Blaise Lobato mutilated 43-year-old Duran Bailey after murdering him with a butterfly knife and baseball bat in a Las Vegas parking lot on July 8, 2001.

They contend Lobato, then 18, was at the end of a three-day methamphetamine binge when she offered to exchange sex for drugs from Bailey. When Lobato realized Bailey couldn't deliver the drugs, she attacked and killed the homeless man, they say. Bailey's penis was severed and he was stabbed in the anus.

Simms said that, in all of the cases he's handled and read about, he's never encountered the type of sexual mutilation present in Bailey's death when it was inflicted by a female.

He added that traditionally, such cases involve a homosexual motivation.

Simms said he considered Bailey's murder to be a "sexually motivated homicide" due to his belief that "there was a significant aggressive component that was a manifestation of sexual urges," Simms said.

He determined the cause of Bailey's death to be blunt-force trauma to the head, but added that a stab wound to Bailey's neck that punctured his carotid artery could also be considered an alternative cause of death.

Although Bailey lost several teeth and suffered other bruising to the head, Simms said he would have expected to see more trauma to Bailey's head if "a bat was swung lethally."

"If someone was swinging a bat with lethal intent, I would expect to see much more damage, but if that person was weak, the injuries could be consistent with a bat," Simms said.

Simms later said that the six teeth Bailey lost during the attack and other contusions to his mouth could have been done with a bat swung by someone "weaker than a grown man."

He also said the skull fracture Bailey suffered could have been a result of Bailey falling backwards and hitting his head.

Lobato, now 23, contends she was in her hometown of Panaca, Nev., which is 160 miles North of Las Vegas, when Bailey was murdered and mutilated.

She confessed to a former teacher and the police that she had mutilated a man in Las Vegas, but she claims she was talking about a different incident in which she was sexually assaulted over Memorial Day weekend and not Bailey's July 8, 2001, murder.

To illustrate the conflicting timeline, Special Public Defender David Schieck asked Simms about Bailey's time of death.

Based on the state of rigor mortis, which Simms said typically takes full effect 12 to 18 hours after death, Simms estimated that Bailey was killed between 9:50 a.m. and 3:50 p.m. on July 8, 2001.

If Lobato was in Panaca during that time, as she claims, she could not have murdered Bailey, Simms indicated.

Lobato's former high school boyfriend, Chris Carrington, testified Wednesday that he was "hanging out" with Lobato July 7, 2001, until close to midnight on July 8, 2001.

But his grandmother, Diane Allen, called him a "lame brain" who flunked out of high school. Allen said she knew Carrington wasn't with Lobato on July 7 because he was driving her to the hospital to be with her husband who had suffered a stroke.

Allen, however, could not say whether her grandson was with Lobato on July 8.

The defense is expected to call several witnesses to testify next week that they saw Lobato on both days and that her car was parked outside her parents' home in Panaca the entire day of Bailey's murder.

Lobato was convicted of first-degree murder and sexual penetration of a corpse for Bailey's murder on May 18, 2002, and later sentenced to 40 to 100 years in prison.

The Nevada Supreme Court, however, granted her a new trial in September 2004, citing the trial judge's failure to admit evidence that could have weakened the credibility of a jailhouse informant.

Lobato's retrial is being covered live by Court TV Extra.



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