Brianna Denison Update: Prosecution Rests After Ex-Girlfriend Testifies Against Accused Killer
RENO, Nev. (CBS/AP) After emotional testimony from James Biela's ex-girlfriend prosecutors rested their case against him in the Brianna Denison murder trial Monday.
PICTURES: Brianna Denison's Life Ends in Brutal Rape and Murder
Carleen Harmon testified that she followed the case closely from the day Brianna was kidnapped from a friend's home in January 2008 and actually watched as police cordoned off the area where Brianna's body was found, three weeks after she disappeared, because it was in the middle of a field just outside of Harmon's workplace.
"I read everything that came out about it," Harmon testified on the 11th day of the trial. "It was scary."
Harmon also testified that Biela, who is on trial for Brianna's kidnapping, rape and murder, seemed indifferent to the case stating that the only reason anyone cared about Brianna case was because she was "hot" and had wealthy parents.
PICTURES: Brianna Denison's Life Ends in Brutal Rape and Murder
Her relationship with Biela was at times tumultuous but despite that Harmon testified that she believed he was innocent until he was arrested, which was made possible in part because she allowed detectives to take DNA samples from their son, to help connect Biela to the crime scene.
After the prosecution rested, the defense began by calling DNA and paternity expert Roger Miller as their first witness. Miller, with Chromosomal Laboratories in Phoenix, testified that the decision by the Washoe County Crime Lab to use all the swabs involved in the case, leaving nothing for the defense to test, went directly against national standards that call for leaving som DNA evidence for the other side to test, according to the Reno Gazette-Journal.
Prosecutors contend Biela is a serial rapist who was motivated in part by a fetish for women's thong underwear and eventually graduated to murder in a string of attacks in 2008.
Biela has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. If convicted of murder, he could face the death penalty. The jury was expected to begin deliberations before the end of the week.
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