WARNING: The following story contains graphic details
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) – All three received a bash on the back of their heads.
Whether that happened before or after they were stabbed is anyone’s guess.
What a forensic pathologist could say, though, was that someone used a knife on the right side of the children’s neck, then took a knife to their right flank, which would deliver a severe injury to their livers.
Whoever stabbed them, did almost the exact same thing to their mother.
That’s some of the graphic testimony jurors heard in an Allen Superior Courtroom on Thursday afternoon as the trial of a man accused of killing 26-year-old Sarah Zent and her young children continued.
Cohen Hancz-Barron, who had been living with Zent in a Gay Street home, is accused of killing her and her children – 5-year-old Carter, 3-year-old Ashton and 2-year-old Aubree – one morning in June.
After the killings, he’s accused of fleeing in a neighbor’s truck and holing up in an apartment near Purdue University in Lafayette. Police tracked him there and made an arrest, and Allen County Prosecutors charged him with a slew of murder counts shortly thereafter.
As Dr. Scott Wagner testified Thursday to the injuries Zent and her children suffered, the father of the two boys who had been killed left the courtroom.
The knife used in the killings had to be two to three inches long and shaped like a leaf with a dull side and a sharp side, Wagner told a jury of 15 people.
When asked by Hancz-Barron’s defense attorneys if the same knife had been used in all four killings, Wagner could not confirm whether it had or not.
Zent’s family and friends remained stoic throughout the testimony, which included Wagner showing the jury photos of the children with their injuries. There were several muffled sobs that escaped from the gallery while he spoke about the killings, however.
An officer with the Fort Wayne Police gang unit testified that, after being caught by police, Hancz-Barron asked if he’d have to serve time for a crime he’s wanted for in another county first after his current arrest.
Hancz-Barron is currently wanted in Starke County for violating probation on a previous robbery conviction, according to court records.
An earlier witness may have eluded to the fact that Hancz-Barron was wanted for another crime, which at times cannot be brought up in a separate criminal trial. That sparked a small controversy during the morning session when defense attorneys brought their concerns about the topic to Allen Superior Court Judge Fran Gull.
The trial, though, continued.
