RALEIGH -- As Jason Lynn Young went before a judge for the first time Tuesday on charges that he murdered his wife, Michelle, a mix of sentiments welled in friends and acquaintances who still ache over how she died three years ago.
Karen McKay, a tax consultant at Progress Energy, recalls the day she learned that her co-worker had been bludgeoned to death.
On Tuesday, McKay listened as Judge Jane Gray told Jason Young that a first-degree murder conviction could result in life in prison or the death penalty. She heard Young, 35, a medical software salesman clad in an orange-and-white jail jumpsuit, ask for a public defender because he did not have enough money to hire an attorney.
Gray agreed to tentatively appoint a public defender to Young's case but added that Young would have to prove that he, indeed, is indigent.
No bond will be set, Gray said, until prosecutors go before a judge to announce whether they plan to pursue the death penalty in the case. That hearing is to take place within the next 10 days.
As the judge and lawyers discussed Young's fate, he stood with his hands shackled behind his back. A bandage covered his left elbow.
"His appearance has certainly changed," McKay said. "He doesn't look as cocky as he once did. We've waited a long time to see something happen in this case. You're full of emotions."
Thirty-seven months have passed since Michelle Young, 29 and several months pregnant, was found by her sister lifeless and crumpled in a pool of blood on her bedroom floor in a subdivision south of Raleigh. Cassidy, the Youngs' daughter, was found in the home unharmed. Blood was spattered on the wall, and Cassidy, then 2, had tracked tiny, bloody footprints throughout the two-story home.
The brutal homicide in an affluent Wake County suburb initially drew national attention, as cable TV shows reported each development. Though Jason Young was long considered the prime suspect, investigators spent years gathering clues and evidence for their case.
On Monday, Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby would not divulge what prompted him to take the case to the grand jury when he did. He said investigators had gathered information from a wrongful death suit in civil court, the custody case over Cassidy, now 5, and review of insurance policies. He also said investigators had reinterviewed witnesses.
Jason Young was ordered to submit DNA samples days after his wife was found in November 2006. Young said he was out of town on business when the homicide occurred.
Search warrants over the years reveal that detectives seized Young's Ford Explorer and discovered blood inside. Investigators also learned that Jason Young was involved in an extramarital affair with a woman living in Florida, court documents show. He would have been the sole beneficiary of a $1 million life-insurance policy for his wife.
More recent search warrants described the Young marriage as a volatile union with "huge" and "loud" fights that would last hours.
Young did not show up for the court proceedings in February when a judge awarded the custody ofCassidy to Michelle's family.
Nor was he present for the legal proceedings last December when a judge declared him responsible for his wife's death, a verdict that resulted in an order to pay $15.5 million in damages to her family.
Jason Young had no choice but to show up for the hearing Tuesday, and friends of Michelle Young were glad to see the case progress.
But questions linger.
Cathy Buckey, Michelle Young's former college cheerleading coach at N.C.State University, said her first reaction to the arrest of Jason Young was relief, then happiness, then an overwhelming sadness.
"Why did it have to happen?" Buckey pondered.
Others expressed the same sentiments.
"It didn't have to be this way," said McKay, Michelle's co-worker. "Divorce is not that bad."
