Proctor also asked the pathologist if the head trauma could have been caused by a baseball bat, according to his notes in the report. She said no, he wrote, but then when asked if a bat being held out the window of a moving vehicle could have caused the same injury, she said, ‘Well, I guess it’s possible.'”
She also called her findings “preliminary,” the report continued, and told Proctor that it was up to him to figure out what, exactly, hit Stephen.
Proctor also noted in the MAIT report that Hampton County Coroner Ernie Washington—who, per the report, was among the investigators who saw Stephen’s body at the scene of the incident—told him on Aug. 18, 2015, that he disagreed with the conclusion that Stephen was hit by a moving vehicle.
(Presnell, who is now director of the pathology department at the Medical University of South Carolina, has not commented on the renewed scrutiny of her findings in the Smith case, but another doctor she helped train told The State last week that coroners are the ones who speak publicly and pathologists don’t usually comment on cases unless they’re called to testify in court.)
