11:30am Saturday 13th March 2010
A TEENAGER murdered on Hartlebury Common died within two minutes of being stabbed through the heart, a jury heard.
The fatal blow suffered by 19-year-old Shane Price was delivered with “severe force”, said Home Office pathologist Dr Stephen Wills.
It passed through the heart and into the right lung, Worcester Crown Court was told.
Joe Carpenter, also 19, of Park Crescent, Stourport, pleaded guilty to murder and wounding before the trial of his parents began.
Car dealer Paul Carp-enter, aged 55, and Tracy Carpenter, 46, who lived with their son, deny murder and wounding the victim’s parents, Eileen and Frederick Price.
The prosecution allege that the killing on February 13 last year followed disputes over missing diesel, scrap metal and a 17-year-old girl fostered by the Carpenter family.
Dr Wills, who carried out a post mortem examinationon the victim, said he suffered five stab wounds.
Two of them passed right through the arms.
He also found 26 other marks.
They were caused by stumbling, falling and contact with vegetation at the Wilden Top car park. Dr Wills said Mr Price, of Broach Road, Stourport, was certified dead at the scene and would have taken up to two minutes to die from the six-inch deep heart wound.
Tracy Carpenter was rushed to hospital with a rapid pulse and low blood pressure the day after the murder.
Consultant Vibhore Gup-tar told the jury she claimed to have been been hit on the head with an iron bar.
But doctors found no clinical evidence of a head injury, although she had sustained a deep cut at the base of her right thumb and another cut to her middle finger.
She claimed in a police interview that the Price family took weapons to the scene.
But prosecutor Tim Raggatt QC told the jury she was accidentally stabbed by her son Joe as he tried to knife Eileen Price, whom she was allegedly holding.
Police found a machete in the Carpenters’ Saab but never found the murder weapon.
The trial continues on Monday.
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