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GREENSBORO — A woman stabbed 39 times in 2006 struggled to breathe for several moments as blood flooded her lungs and airway before she passed out, a medical examiner testified Tuesday.

Lavell Williams would have been in pain in her throat and chest from the wounds, many of which were two inches and some as deep as three inches, Dr. Maryanne Gaffney-Kraft told a jury.

“She would have been awake and alert at the time the injuries occurred,” she testified.

Blood loss would eventually have caused her to lose awareness, she said.

Tony Savalis Summers, 36, of Greensboro is accused of raping and killing Williams at her McIntosh Street apartment on Nov. 7, 2006, while her three children were at home. The two older children, 16 and 11 at the time, also were stabbed, but survived.

If convicted of first-degree murder, Summers could face the death penalty.

Gaffney-Kraft, a pathologist with the state medical examiner’s office, performed the autopsy on Williams. She described the wounds Tuesday as she showed the jury pictures taken during the autopsy.

She testified that Williams was stabbed 21 times in the neck and throat area. The wounds caused damage to the carotid artery, jugular, thyroid, muscles, jaw bone and two cervical bones in her spine, Gaffney-Kraft said.

Most of the remaining wounds were to the chest, some of which punctured the heart and lungs, she said. The consistent front-to-back pattern of the wounds indicates Williams was lying down and unable to move for most of the attack, she said.

Several wounds could have been fatal on their own, Gaffney-Kraft said.

Testimony began Monday in the capital murder trial.

The two older children testified about what they remembered. Both said they recognized Summers as the husband of a friend’s godmother. Summers had given Williams and two of her children a ride home that summer from a barbecue at the godmother’s home, the daughters said.

On Tuesday, two neighbors testified that they did not recognize Summers from their neighborhood when they saw him that day at Williams’ apartment. Both said they remembered hearing a girl screaming and recognized their neighbor’s oldest daughter running across the courtyard.

If found guilty and sentenced to death, Summers would be the first person in Guilford County sent to death row in nearly a decade. John Henry Thompson was sentenced to death in November 2002 for the March 2001 shooting death of Kenneth Bruhmuller during a robbery of a Domino’s Pizza restaurant.

Contact Jennifer Fernandez at 373-7064 or jennifer.fernandez@news-record.com