A woman beaten last summer at a south Lawrence mobile home park identified her attacker to several people before dying from her injuries, according to testimony Tuesday in Douglas County District Court in the second-degree murder trial for Christopher Belone.

Belone also faces charges of kidnapping, obstruction of the legal process and violation of a protection order in connection with the July 2006 attack on his longtime girlfriend, 37-year-old Linda Begay.

Begay’s friend Keith Bowers took the stand Tuesday. Bowers testified that he drove Begay to the hospital after the attack, and on the way she told him Belone had caused the injuries.

“She told me that Chris came in and everything was fine and all of a sudden he started beating on her,” Bowers testified. “She said he hit her with a two-by-four in the face and then took the two-by-four and rammed it into her stomach twice.”

The Lawrence Memorial Hospital emergency room doctor who first treated Begay also testified, saying that Begay told him that her boyfriend assaulted her with a stick and a pipe.

Begay died two and a half days later from peritonitis, an infection brought on by blunt trauma injuries to her stomach.

The trial is expected to last through the week. Prosecutors have said they plan to call more than 40 witnesses.

– 6News anchor/reporter Janet Reid can be reached at 832-6310.