BY ANDY GARDNER

North Country This Week

CANTON -- A medical examiner testified Tuesday morning in the Christopher Hebert murder trial and said that Lacey Yekel's remains may not have shown evidence of beating or choking.

Hebert, 47, is being tried in St. Lawrence County Court for second-degree murder for allegedly killing Yekel, who died at age 25 around June 7, 2014. Prosecutors say Hebert severely beat her and then choked her. Yekel's skeletal remains were recovered in woods near the Massena Industrial Park on Aug. 29, 2014.

Dr. Michael Sikirica testified that he examined Yekel's remains on Sept. 2, 2014 at Albany Medical Center.

He said her hyoid bone, located in the neck below the jaw, showed nothing consistent with strangulation, but with a person of the victim's age when she died that might not show.

"As a person becomes more elderly, the bones fuse ... and the cartilaginous tissue is replaced with bony tissue ... makes it much easier to fracture," Sikirica said as a picture of Yekel's hyoid bone was shown on a projector. "It showed no evidence of strangulation but strangulation may not appear on that bone."

When examining Yekel's skull, Sikirica said there was nothing consistent or inconsistent with an assault to the head.

"It would be the force of whatever the skull hit or hit the skull ... whether it hit the skull directly or at an oblique angle ... there's a lot of factors" if the skull would show signs of trauma, Sikirica said. "Every time somebody gets hit in the head it doesn't lead to a fracture."

Under cross-examination from defense attorney Peter Dumas, Sikirica noted there was also nothing consistent with strangulation or an assault to the head.

"If someone had crushed their skull or caved it in, it would be evident?" Dumas said.

"Yes," Sikirica answered.

"Has someone described something to you you didn't find in a body?" District Attorney Gary Pasqua asked.

"Yes," Sikirica said.

"Or maybe because they were lying about what they did?" Dumas asked.

"That would be a possibility, yes," Sikirica replied.

The next witness is Brandy Bressard, Hebert's ex-girlfriend who secretly taped him confessing to the murder, prosecutors said. The prosecution may rest their case after her testimony.