Pathologist testifies in trial for ex-FBI agent accused in hammer killing

By Dave Toplikar

Published Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2010 | 4:38 p.m.

Updated Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2010 | 5:16 p.m.

Grisly autopsy photos, including close-ups of various injuries. Descriptions and definitions of those injuries by a pathologist.

And the details of different colors of those wounds — and whether they could indicate the injuries were new or could have occurred at an earlier time.

That's what a Clark County District Court jury took in Wednesday afternoon during the first day of testimony in the murder trial of Edward Preciado-Nuno, a 63-year-old retired FBI special agent who admitted to repeatedly striking his son's girlfriend with a hammer.

Jurors were shown grisly autopsy photos of the body of Kimberly Long, 31, the mother of Preciado-Nuno's infant grandson.

She was found by police lying in a pool of blood Nov. 13, 2008, with Preciado-Nuno, himself bloodied, kneeling over her in the garage of the Las Vegas home she shared with Preciado-Nuno's son, Jeffrey.

Preciado-Nuno's attorney, Tom Pitaro, told the jury Tuesday that the longtime law enforcement officer had gone to the home at 8790 Ashley Park Ave. to try to help his son get out of a "toxic" relationship with Long and legally evict her.

Preciado-Nuno acted in self defense, Pitaro said. His son's girlfriend had a few days earlier punched his son, breaking his nose. Preciado had come to help his son and was showing Long documents he intended to use to evict her, Pitaro said.

She picked up a hammer and began striking him, knocking him to the floor. Fearing for his life, he picked up another hammer and began fighting her, Pitaro said.

However, prosecutors are saying the evidence and Long's multiple injuries all over her head, body, arms and legs will show that Preciado-Nuno guilty of the charge of murder with the use of a deadly weapon, a claw hammer.

Preciado-Nuno is out of custody on $250,000 bail and is under house arrest.

The trial is expected to take about two weeks.

The state's first witness in the case was Gary Telgenhoff, a forensic pathologist who has worked 13 years in the Clark County Coroner's office.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Giancario Pesci had Telgenhoff go through a series of autopsy photos, showing and describing each of the 34 areas of injury on her body.

Telgenhoff went into great detail on each injury, describing that most of the 13 injuries all over her head were lacerations, which he described as a tearing or smashing of the skin by something blunt that struck it.

The jury saw picture after picture of lacerations on her head, including one that smashed through her skull. An X-ray showed that it has cracked her skull and sent bone fragments into her brain, Telgenhoff said.

They also saw photos of her face, which had two lacerations under her right eye, according to the pathologist.

After jurors saw all the injuries from her head to her ankles, including a broken bone on her left arm, Tom Pitaro, Preciado-Nuno's attorney, began his cross examination.

Pitaro had the pathologist explain that parts of Long's body were discolored by levidity, the process where blood settles in the body after death. Pitaro had the pathologist point out the areas on the body where that had occurred.

He also had the pathologist describe the colorations that typically occurs with bruising. Telgenhoff wrote on a chart that the colors go from pink to maroon, to dark gray or blue and finally to yellow.

Telgenhoff said several times during the cross examination that bruise color doesn't related to a particular time frame. He said the only color that could actually be used to tell an older bruise from a fresh one was yellow.

However, Pitaro continued having him go through each of the injuries on Long's legs, back, chest and arms and having him describe the colors of each bruise.

The state's next witness was Daniel Proietto, a Metro senior crime scene analyst, who was identifying photos taken of the interior of the home on Nov. 13, 2008, including several that showed bloody footprints on the wood floor in the home.

Judge Donald Mosley stopped testimony at 5 p.m. and told the jurors that the trial would continue at 1:30 p.m. Thursday.