Pathologist Testifies on Sobek Injuries

Although continuing to reject the prosecution’s claim that model Linda Sobek was strangled, a defense witness for the man accused of murdering the 27-year-old Hermosa Beach woman testified Wednesday that her injuries indicated she was assaulted.

The observation by Dr. David Posey, an independent forensic pathologist and former Army surgeon, was hailed by prosecutors as proof that photographer Charles Rathbun, 39, of Hollywood killed Sobek after sodomizing her during a photo shoot last November in the Angeles National Forest.

But Rathbun’s attorney, Mark Werksman, insisted that Posey’s comment was consistent with the defense theory that Rathbun and Sobek engaged in consensual sex and that she was accidentally asphyxiated when her neck and chest were pressed against the back door of a vehicle.

During prosecutor Steve Kay’s cross-examination of Posey, the pathologist also said he could not explain the injuries to the inside of Sobek’s ankles, which authorities believe were tied during a sexual assault.

But Posey, who has worked on occasion for coroner’s offices in Los Angeles, Riverside and other cities, also told Kay that the lack of overall trauma to Sobek’s body, among other factors, made a precise determination of what happened before her death impossible.