It’s a picture that paints a thousand words.
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Or in this case, a CT scan that truly reveals the horror that took place in the space of a few short minutes inside a Gwynneville flat in the early hours of July 6 last year.
Christopher Coombs, for unknown reasons, took a hammer to a vulnerable, 77-year-old woman, hitting her with force multiple times to the left side of her face.
The results of his gruesome handywork can be seen here (right), in a scan of the victim’s injuries taken while she lay fighting for her life in hospital.
Doctors would later provide police with a detailed list of the woman’s head injuries, but one description stood out among others; two skull bones had been fractured on the upper left side of her head, leading to a depression of the cranium bone.
In laymen’s terms, Coombs had caved her head in.
He had also delivered blows that caused her left jaw and left cheek bone to shatter, and doctors said a fractured eye socket had caused fat from behind the eye to drop down into the cavity.
Despite her horrific injuries, the woman was able to identify Coombs to police the same night; she’d only ever spoken to him once, about eight months earlier just outside her unit, she said.
Their casual conversation had turned to living arrangements and she thought nothing of telling him she lived alone with her cat.
The woman told police she’d retired to bed earlier that night, only to be woken by Coombs entering her room through her verandah door just after 3.30am.
Her crept over to her bed, pulled off her underwear and tried to rape her. Flaccid, he couldn’t perform the act. This prompted him to demand the woman put his penis in her mouth.
She refused, keeping her teeth clamped shut while he rubbed up against her face.
He then wrapped a tie around her neck, forced her onto the ground and picked up the hammer.
Neighbours later told police they heard a thud and muffled screams, however when they shone a light through the window, Coombs was nowhere to be seen.
Instead, the found the victim on the floor across the other side of the room, covered in blood.
Intensive care paramedics took her to hospital.
Police pounced on Coombs before sunlight.
He admitted to being in the woman’s street that morning, but not to assaulting or trying to rape her.
He maintained his innocence for more than a year, only confessing to his crimes in court this week.
He will remain in custody ahead of sentencing proceedings that are set to begin in Wollongong District Court next month.