RALEIGH -- After making the rare move of putting Jason Young on the stand for more than four hours to defend himself against accusations that he murdered his pregnant wife, the defense rested.
Young, who became tearful and emotional on several occasions during his testimony, emphatically stated on more than one occasion that he did not murder his wife. He gave an emphatic "no" when asked whether he saw his wife murdered.
He said "no" again when asked whether he knew anything about his wife's homicide.
Prosecutor Becky Holt peppered Young with questions about why he waited more than four years after his wife's death to tell where he was the hours before and after her lifeless body was found in the master bedroom of their Wake County home.
Michelle Young was 29 and nearly five months pregnant when her sister discovered her bludgeoned body.
Young insisted that he was following the advice of his attorney.
Young said he talked with an attorney several days after the homicide.
Holt asked why he had chosen not to talk with family or friends before consulting an attorney.
Young testified that his friends called him while he was traveling with his mother, sister and brother-in-law from Brevard to Wake County hours after his wife's death was discovered.
One friend alerted him that he might want to get a lawyer before talking with police based on the kinds of questions investigators had asked him.
"I did not talk about anything with anyone," Young testified on questions from the prosecution.
Prosecutors called one newspaper carrier after Young stepped down from the stand to raise doubts about whether a van was outside the Young house early Nov. 3, 2006.
Shortly after 3 p.m. both sides had rested their cases.
Judge Donald Stephens, who has presided over the trial for the past three weeks, told jurors before dismissing them for the afternoon they could get the case tomorrow afternoon or the next day.
Each side will get two hours for closing arguments.
Young, the medical software salesman who has sat in a Wake County courtroom for the past 11 days as dozens of witnesses talked about his life with his wife, took the stand this morning to give his own account.
In a packed courtroom, Young talked about meeting Michelle when he was just out of college at the Pour House in Raleigh. He recalled knocking over a drink and then buying her a replacement. He recalled becoming smitten with her beauty and poise, describing her as so pretty she was "out of his league."
For much of the morning, Young talked about the ups and downs of his relationship with his wife.
He described with much enthusiasm the Caesarian birth of their daughter Cassidy, seeing one leg, then another, then her hands and then the child who many described as "Daddy's little girl."
Jason Young said he and his wife argued often, particularly when Michelle was pregnant with Cassidy.
They both had strong personalities, he said, and neither wanted to give in.
Young acknowledged that he had been a bad husband and had extramarital trysts. He regretted laying his hands on his former fiancee in the Texas hotel room and pulling the engagement ring from her finger, he said.
He told Bryan Collins, the defense attorney asking him questions, that he had never laid a hand on another woman since then.
Jason Young also testified about checking in to a Virginia hotel room the night before his wife's body was found. He said he got to the Hampton Inn in Hillsville, Va., shortly before 11 p.m. and took his computer and luggage up to the hotel room. He left his room a bit later, he said, because he wanted to practice the presentation he was planning to give the next day as he tried to sell medical software to a hospital in Virginia. He said he left a charger in his car.
While leaving the room, he said, he did not pull the hotel room door to a close. As a traveling salesman, he tried not to slam hotel doors in the night since he had often been awakened by the noise.
He left the door ajar, he said, went down an outside stair case, then realizing the door would lock if he closed it, put some twigs from a nearby bush between the door and the jamb to keep it open.
Young said he then returned to his hotel room.
Young left the room again, he said, a short time later to go outside and smoke a cigar by his car. He also planned to read a USA Today for schedules of sporting events that weekend.
When he got outside, he smoked the cigar but did not try to read the paper because it was windy out, he said.
Prosecutors contend Young left the hotel at that time, shortly before midnight, returned to Raleigh and killed his wife.
Young said he returned to his hotel room, using the staircase where he had propped the outside door open with bush twigs. He went into his room, again through an unlatched door, brushed his teeth and went to bed.
Young said he did not ask for wake-up calls at hotels typically because he did not like to be awakened that way. Instead, he said, he set a radio alarm for 6 a.m. or 6:30 a.m.
Young countered testimony from a convenience store clerk in King, N.C., who said she sold gas to him at 5:30 a.m. Nov. 3.
He said he did not buy gas then, that he was in his hotel room.
That morning, Young said he got up and made two business calls, one was to an appointment he was running about a half-hour late, the other was a drop-in visit where he left his business card.
While traveling through the mountainous terrain, Young said he made numerous cell phone calls that often were dropped. Two were routed to the wrong place. He placed one call to his mom that ended up in a Tennessee dairy, he said.
Young said he tried to call Cingular, his cell service provider, to find out what was going on and that call was dropped.
Young said his memory of some things on Nov. 2 and 3 was kind of hazy. He cannot vividly remember the last conversation he had with his wife Michelle, a phone call before midnight on Nov. 2, to let her know he had arrived safely.
His brief stay at his mother's house in Brevard, where his stepfather Gerald McIntyre bluntly told him that Michelle was dead, was a blur.
Young, dressed in a gray suit, blue shirt and dark tie, stated an emphatic no each time his attorney asked whether he murdered his wife, was in the house when she died or knew anything about her death.
He testified that he did not talk with police or anyone else after her death on the advice of lawyers,
Young, who broke down in tears several times during his testimony this morning, said since his wife's death he had lost everything — his family, his friends and his jobs.
