Dr Wong Koon-hung testified last Thursday that the force exerted on the head of the figurines and the metal base had caused the legs to detach.

Wong told the court Monday he could not tell from which direction the ``principal force'' could have come.

Kissel's wife, Nancy, 41, stands accused of serving her husband a pink milkshake laced with sedatives, which left him unconscious at the foot of their bed as she beat him to death with a heavy metal ornament on November 2, 2003.

The accused told a doctor and the police at the time that her husband was drunk and had assaulted her after she refused him sex and then disappeared. She denies the murder charge and is out on bail.

The banker's decomposing body, wrapped up in a carpet, was discovered in a storeroom in the Parkview residential complex in the early hours of November 7. The suspected murder weapon was delivered to Wong on November 8 for examination.

Wong told the court Monday he had always assumed that the metal base plate was flat and did not specifically examine the ornament for signs of impact with another hard object.

Defense counsel Alexander King drew the witness' attention to shiny and silvery surfaces on the heads and on the base of the ornament.

Wong said abrasions or contact with another hard area could have caused these marks and that, over a period of time, it would oxidize and become duller.

Judging by photographs and the ornament itself, Wong said he could also see ``indentations and shiny metal surfaces'' on the edge of the base.

He said the indentations could have been caused by the impact of another hard object.

With reference to older family pictures with the ornament in the background, Wong said the metal base appeared to be flat in those photos. He agreed that by the time he examined the ornament, it was bent.

He said it was possible that it could have become bent if someone had struck the base with a hard elongated object, such as a baseball bat.

When questioned by prosecutor Ada Chan, Wong said he could see some ``red pigment'' markings on the indentations. Chan asked if an impact with skull bone could also have caused such indentations on the edge of the metal base. ``I cannot comment on that, because I don't know how hard is the skull bone,'' Wong replied.

If the impact from the hard cylindrical object was so forceful as to cause a curve in the base and the detachment of the figurines, ``would you expect to see more obvious marks of the impact?'' she asked.

Wong replied that he could not say. He told the court that there were so many different types of wood with different hardness, but there ``has to be something substantially hard to leave this kind of impression on the metal base.''

The case continues today before Justice Michael Lunn.

albert.wong@singtaonewscorp.com