Jury Deliberations Begin In North Philly Rape Double Murder Cold Case
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Jurors will return Monday morning for deliberations in a cold case rape and double murder from 1989 in North Philadelphia.
They got the case – which featured dueling DNA experts -- late Friday afternoon, and talked it over about 90 minutes.
Assistant DA Gwen Cujdik told jurors "the evidence was silent" for 27 years, "and now we gave it a voice."
She went on to say the "science does not lie. That's how we found you," glaring and pointing a finger at the defendant, 54-year-old Rudolph Churchill.
Prosecutors allege Churchill's DNA was on a paper towel found near 19-year-old Ruby Ellis' body and on 33-year old victim Cheryl Hanible's sneaker.
Cujdik said they "were perfect victims, poor, on the streets and selling their bodies." She says Churchill "degraded and victimized them, expecting no one to care."
Defense lawyer Gina Capuano says even if you believe the prosecution analysts that link her client through DNA evidence, it's "just as likely the DNA was left for reasons not related to either murder." She suggested to jurors there could easily have been a "secondary transfer" of Churchill's DNA near both victims.
She says the abandoned car and building where the two victims were found had debris everywhere from drug use and prostitution. And, she says the DNA collection techniques of 1989 were less than thorough and pristine because several items photographed were not preserved for analysis. In her words "they went MIA."