The 28-year-old woman who died in her seat on an overnight train to Denver nine years ago suffered injuries that indicate she was suffocated, including a tooth imprint on the inside of her lip, a national expert testified Monday during the murder trial for the woman’s boyfriend.
The tooth imprint on Marina Placensia’s lower lip suggests that her lip was pressed into the tooth with a significant amount of force as she was suffocated, testified Bill Smock, a physician with the Louisville Metro Police Department in Kentucky and expert in strangulation who also testified in the George Floyd case.
“Ms. Placensia was suffocated to death,” Smock testified. “She died because she couldn’t breathe. Period. This is homicide. Death at the hands of someone else. Literally the hands of someone else.”
Smock took the stand at the start of the second week of the jury trial for Angelo Mantych, 43, who is charged with first-degree murder in Placensia’s death. Placensia died in her seat on an overnight Amtrak train to Denver on Sept. 1, 2016.
Mantych told officers he tried to wake his girlfriend about 20 minutes before they arrived in Denver, and assumed she was sleeping deeply when she did not stir. He said he tried again 10 minutes before arrival and then sought help when she still did not respond, according to an affidavit.
The Denver Office of the Medical Examiner could not determine her cause of death in 2016, and Mantych was not arrested until 2023, after Smock, brought in as an outside expert, reviewed the case and concluded that Placensia was suffocated to death.
A woman died in her seat on an overnight train to Denver. Nine years later, her boyfriend is on trial for murder.
Prosecutors allege that Mantych silently smothered his partner to death in the dark train car. Mantych's attorneys say she died of natural causes, and said authorities blamed her death on Mantych only because of his long history of domestic violence against Placensia.
When she died, Placensia had more than 35 separate injuries that indicated ongoing physical abuse -- including significant internal bleeding from a recent blow to her lower back, Smock testified. Her family said she planned to leave Mantych after she and her children arrived in Denver on the train from Wisconsin.
One of the couple's children testified Monday that Mantych beat Placensia "almost daily" when the family lived in Wisconsin and that he was often violent and drunk. The teenager described an incident in which his father hit his mother with a chair, breaking it into pieces, but said he did not see any fighting between them on the train before Placensia died.
Smock pointed to bleeding in Placensia's gums as another indication that she was suffocated. He testified that a person typically loses consciousness within 90 seconds after their air supply is cut off, and that during that time frame, the suffocated person will struggle to breathe and will be unable to scream, speak or cry out, he testified.
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Smock reiterated his stance during cross-examination as Mantych's attorneys sought to undermine his expertise, and he rejected their arguments that Placensia could have died from liver disease, heart conditions or alcohol withdrawal.
"She did not die of natural causes," Smock testified.
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