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Last updated on Wednesday, August 10, 2016
(NASHVILLE) - The murder trial of Daniel Messel continues today in Brown County Circuit Court.
On Tuesday, Defense attorney Dorie Maryan cross-examined a police DNA expert challenging prosecution allegations that blood and DNA proving Daniel Messel is guilty of murder.
Blood found on blades of grass at the scene of Hannah Wilson's murder had her blood and blood from an unknown person - not Daniel Messel.
Messell, 50, a print shop worker from Bloomington, is accused of killing 22-year-old Hannah Wilson two weeks before she was to graduate from Indiana University. A passerby found Wilson's body on April 24, 2015 in a parking lot laying face down at State Road 45 and Plum Creek Road near Helmsburg. Wilson had been reported missing the day before the discovery of her body. Messell's cell phone was found next to her body.
An autopsy determined that Wilson had died from blunt force injuries to the back of her head.
Indiana State Police Forensic Serologist Michael Raymond a total of 25 items from the investigation were sent for DNA analysis.
Fourteen of the items submitted were from Messel's Kia SUV. Raymond testified that Wilson's DNA was found on the inside of the driver's side door, on the windshield and hood and on an IU pullover shirt in the back seat of the SUV. The pullover shirt also had Messel's blood on it.
Raymond also testified that a clump of 50 hairs found on the backseat driver's side floor matched Hannah Wilson's DNA.
Maryan quizzed Raymond about unidentified DNA mixed with Wilson's blood found on blades of dewy grass where the IU student's body was discovered. Raymond confirmed that DNA from an unknown individual was detected in grass collected from the vacant lot near Helmsburg where Wilson's body was found.
Brown County Prosecutor Ted Adams showed the jury the long-sleeved gray shirt Hannah Wilson was wearing when she was killed, its cotton, blood-soaked fabric stiff and cut apart for DNA testing.
Raymond testified that just Wilson's blood was found on the shirt.
Judge Judith Stewart also ruled that prosecutors cannot present evidence of prior convictions for violence against women during the trial of a man accused of killing an Indiana University student.
Judge Stewart denied the state's request to present evidence that his past victims also had their hair pulled out and suffered blunt-force trauma like Hannah Wilson.
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