cseward@newsobserver.com
Jason Young, left, and private investigator Steve Hale listen as Meredith Fisher, sister of Michelle Young, gives her testimony during Young's trial held in a Wake Co. courtroom in Raleigh, N.C. on June 8, 2011. He is charged with murdering his wife Michelle.
RALEIGH -- The only bruise that investigators found on Jason Young during a strip search the day after his wife was bludgeoned to death was a dark sliver under his big toe nail on his left foot.
Young, 37, is on trial, accused of murdering his wife, Michelle, on Nov. 3, 2006.
Michelle Young was 29 and five months pregnant when her sister found her face down on the floor near her husband's closet. The Youngs' daughter Cassidy, 2 at the time, was home and had tracked blood around the bedroom and down the hall.
Jason Young pleaded not guilty. His lawyers contend his wife's homicide is unsolved.
Young told family and friends he was on a business trip in Virginia, about 160 miles from Raleigh, when his wife was beaten so violently that her broken-out teeth were found on the floor away from her body. Blood splatter was found on the wall behind a dresser.
Prosecutors argue that Young checked into a hotel in Hillsville, Va., on Nov. 2, 2006, about an hour before midnight. Minutes before midnight lobby security cameras captured images of Young walking through the lobby and out the front door.
Prosecutors say Young set out for Raleigh then, made the three hour drive back to the home in Enchanted Oaks neighborhood just south of the city, tried to strangle his wife, then bludgeoned her after she put up a fight.
Prosecutors contend that Jason Young then made the trip back to Virginia, stopping for gas in King, a small North Carolina town near the Virginia border, at about 5:30 a.m.
Mike Galloway, a crime scene investigator with the City-County Bureau of Identification, was on the witness stand this morning, describing photographs he took in Wake County and in Virginia as part of the homicide investigation.
Not only did he go through the Youngs' home, he also swabbed and examined the rooms, hallways and stairwells of the Hampton Inn where Jason Young was registered as a guest the evening of Nov. 2 and morning of Nov. 3.
Jason Young was ordered to appear before Wake County investigators on Nov. 4 and provide them with DNA samples. He also was forced to strip naked so investigators could scan him for any injuries.
Galloway testified this morning that there was no evidence of abrasions, bruises or swelling on Young, except for the blackened toe nail on his left foot.
No blood was found in Young's white Ford Explorer and no fibers from the Hampton Inn in Virginia were found in the Youngs' Wake County home.
