‘This is the weapon.’ Expert identifies knife that caused Josephson’s fatal injuries

Samantha Josephson was stabbed using a multi-tool that was found in the trash can of Nathaniel Rowland’s ex girlfriend, an expert witness said Monday.

The expert witness was Thomas Beaver, a pathologist and associate professor at the Medical University of South Carolina. He conducted Josephson’s autopsy and determined she died of “unique” stab wounds that in some cases were almost perfectly parallel. Prosecutor Byron Gipson then handed Beaver the multi-tool pprosecutors had previously said was the murder weapon.

“This knife has two blades and they’re relatively parallel. They are bent at the tip and they are the size-appropriate for the wounds I saw,” Beaver said. “This is the weapon.”

Beaver identified multiple wounds indicating Josephson was fighting back as she was being stabbed. In one instance, she had likely held her hand up to protect herself and was stabbed, with both parallel blades, through the hand, Beaver said.

Not all of the injuries were parallel, which initially led Beaver to think there were two weapons, he said. However, Beaver demonstrated on the witness stand how the multi-tool could be quickly adjusted to only use one blade at a time. Josephson also sustained injury to her “hyoid bone,” which is typically associated with manual strangulation, Beaver said. Beaver couldn’t guarantee Josephson’s wasn’t strangled at some point, but he ruled the cause of death as “multiple stab wounds,” he said.

In its opening statement, the prosecution said Rowland stabbed Josephson more than 100 times after Josephson was kidnapped early in the morning of March 29, 2019.

Beaver testified the exact number of stab wounds is closer to 120, but “it gets to a point where (the number of wounds) doesn’t really add much to the reporting.”

While the jury was out of the courtroom, Judge Clifton Newman asked the prosecution to submit no more gruesome photos than were necessary. Prosecutors agreed, and did not enter into evidence two photos.

As Beaver described the gruesome injuries Josephson sustained before her death, the Josephson family comforted one another, held hands, leaned into their partner’s shoulder. Others averted their eyes as graphic photos were shown to the jury.

Since opening statements were made Tuesday, the prosecution has called 31 witnesses, many of whom are criminal investigators with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, or SLED.

Monday began the second week of the trial. Last week, the jury heard from expert witnesses who said the blood in the back of Rowland’s car was almost certainly Josephson’s; an expert witness who tracked Rowland’s phone from Five Points to the location the body was found on the night of the killing; the owner of a phone repair company said Rowland tried to sell him Josephson’s phone hours after she was killed and Rowland’s ex-girlfriend testified she saw him cleaning what prosecutors say was the murder weapon.

This story was originally published July 26, 2021 at 11:07 AM with the headline "‘This is the weapon.’ Expert identifies knife that caused Josephson’s fatal injuries."