Andre Kirk Hypolite should be acquitted of his murder because Nicholas Dill had enough cocaine in his body to ?kill an elephant?, a defence lawyer told a Supreme Court jury yesterday.

Mark Pettingill told jurors that although 0.81 micrograms of cocaine per millilitre of blood was discovered in Mr. Dill on December 29, 2004, that was after the cocaine had been broken down for three days.

?This is not voodoo or magic. This is not high drama. This is expert scientific evidence. Its not about, ?I think I saw this guy? ? not soap opera facts.?

Prosecutors never gave a motive, he said, adding: ?This is a drug, sex orgy. It is bizarre.?

Addressing the issue of the amount of drugs, Mr. Pettingill said:We know there was more than that. The vitreous humour had 2.3. At some time that was his blood level.

Was there any evidence of any one surviving a level of 2.3 cocaine? We heard about 0.6, 1.2, but this is right up there. This is killing elephant range.

While DNA evidence was ?wonderful stuff,? Mr. Pettingill warned it could also possess a ?voodoo element?.

He continued: ?Just because you find his DNA you can?t say he done it.? before telling jurors, the prosecution?s ?star witness?, Stacy Pike, had a ?serious coke habit? but her blood was never tested for drugs.

?Can you really rely on what she has to say and what she didn?t have to say?? he asked. ?Yeah, she?s cleaned up now. But with respect, with these soap opera facts, when you have a person that coked up, can you be sure about how it started or ended or who did what? Could you trust them??

Ms Pike caused the death of a man years ago that she called an accident, he said. ?She picked up a knife and stabbed another man and killed him,? he said. ?She has that. She came here with that.?

He said famed forensic pathologist Michael Baden was not a ?hired gun? paid to bolster the defence, but came to Bermuda because he concluded there could be a ?serious miscarriage of justice?.

?Everyone who came here was paid for by the taxpayer (via legal aid),? Mr. Pettingill said. ?He did not have to come here. He is very busy and eminent. But he came here. We can?t subpoena him to come.?

While Dr. Baden respected fellow expert Dr. Valerie Rao, she did not ?have everything available to make an informed and thorough decision at that time?, he concluded.

The first hurdle the jury has to jump was how Mr. Dill came to his death, Mr. Pettingill explained, adding that blood at the crime-scene was a ?smoke-screen? that looked awful, ?here, there and everywhere?.

The ?one thing? the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital surgeon ?got right? was there was a ?surprisingly little amount of blood? discovered inside Mr. Dill during surgery.

?You may think it is interesting we did not hear from the surgeon who did the surgery so you can be sure,? he said. ?Miraculously we have two wounds that missed his vitals. It was a miracle that, you know. This was a nasty gash. We have all had nasty gashes but it is not going to kill us. You would not bleed to death from that.?

Blood hosed out the body when arteries in the neck were cut, he said, and similarly when arteries on the inside of the body burst, blood filled up a body cavities. ?So when you open someone up there is a nightmare of blood,? Mr. Pettingill said. ?That was not there in this case. That was why the doctor was surprised. So what does he do? He takes the spleen out.

?They thought he was bleeding to death because they saw the blood on the outside. They did not see his blood count. They thought the man had been stabbed so he must be bleeding to death,? he said. ?If they stopped to look at the index readings they would have been like ?woah!?

?You will have to go beyond the bloody mess and walk hand and hand with the forensic detectives. This defendant should be acquitted of murder,? he said. ?To convict him would be to throw this evidence in the trash because you wanted to do something else.?