A man posing as a student’s Uber driver allegedly stabbed her more than 100 times, according to an expert witness who testified in court Monday.
Authorities believe Samantha Josephson was murdered on March 29, 2019, after she got into Nathaniel Rowland’s black Chevrolet Impala, thinking his vehicle was her Uber ride home after a night out with friends, NBC News previously reported. The expert witness, pathologist Dr. Thomas Beaver, examined Josephson’s body after authorities found her body off a dirt road in the woods about 65 miles away from where she was last seen, according to The Associated Press (AP).
NEW: Nathanial Rowland talking to family after court today. Opening statements have ended and several witnesses were called today. Rowland is accused of kidnapping and killing former University of South Carolina student Samantha Josephson @wachfox pic.twitter.com/Z27mObl3tS
— Shay Simon🎈 (@ShaySimonTV) July 20, 2021
Beaver claimed that the 21-year-old Josephson had just 20 milliliters of blood left in her body when he examined her corpse, The AP reported. There was so little blood left, in fact, that Beaver and other examiners reportedly had difficulty drawing enough blood to run proper tests. Normally, a human body contains around a gallon of blood, The AP noted.
During his testimony, Beaver spent around an hour detailing the more than 100 stab wounds Josephson sustained after her alleged kidnapping. Beaver claimed that he does not have a precise number of stab wounds because there were so many. “It gets to a point where it really doesn’t add much to the report,” Beaver said, according to The AP.
Beaver also testified that he was certain the double-bladed knife authorities found in Rowland’s girlfriend’s trash can was the murder weapon, The AP reported. However, when defense attorneys cross-examined Beaver, he claimed that he Googled hundreds of pictures of knives after the autopsy to find what kind of weapon could produce the unique stab wounds, and sent investigators a photo of a different looking weapon, The AP noted.
Prosecutors previously claimed that the 21-year-old, who was just months away from graduating from the University of South Carolina, suffered “heinous, cruel and malicious acts” at the hands of Rowland. (RELATED: 21-Year-Old Suffered ‘Cruel And Malicious Acts’ When She Was Murdered By Man She Mistook For Uber Driver, Prosecutor Says)
However, defense lawyer Tracy Pinnock told the jury there were zero traces of DNA “on Samantha Josephson’s body that matches Nathaniel Rowland. Zero. It’s not on her clothing, it’s not under her ripped and torn finger nails, it’s not on her ankles.”
Rowland faces life without parole for Josephson’s alleged murder.