Young denies killing wife; jury begins deliberations

RALEIGH -- Jason Young waited 1,693 days to give his account of where he was and what he was doing the hours before and after his wife was killed to anyone other than his attorneys.

Now the 37-year-old medical software salesman must wait as seven men and five women deliberate whether he is guilty or innocent of murdering his wife, Michelle, on Nov. 3, 2006.

The jury is to resume deliberations today.

Before the jury got the case midafternoon Thursday, prosecutors and defense attorneys laid out arguments in four hours, two for each side. Each urged jurors to look at circumstances and consider whether they made sense.

The defense argued that the prosecution's timeline did not make sense, and much of its evidence played to its theory that the homicide remained unsolved.

Prosecutors argued that Young had not acted as an innocent man would, that he refused to talk with investigators, never asked about their theories or uttered a word about his whereabouts to family and friends.

Young, in an unusual move, took the stand Wednesday.

When asked whether he murdered his wife, he offered an emphatic "No sir, I did not." He also testified that he did not know what happened to his wife.

"We will never know what happened at 5108 Birchleaf Drive that night," defense attorney Bryan Collins said. "This case is not solved. The evidence is not clear."

Jurors were instructed to decide whether Young is guilty or innocent of first-degree murder and to decide whether there was evidence that he acted in concert with others to commit the crime.

Prosecutors contend that Young brutally and fatally bludgeoned his wife with a weapon that never was recovered. They argue that he drove from a Virginia hotel, nearly 160 miles from Raleigh, shortly after midnight on Nov. 3, killed his wife and returned to Virginia.

The medical examiner testified that Michelle Young's facial bones were fractured, her lips were split and her teeth were broken. She suffered at least 30 blows and had defensive wounds.

Defense attorneys reminded jurors in closing arguments that two days after the homicide, the only sign of injury that investigators found on Jason Young was a bruise on his left big toenail.

No blood was found in Young's white Ford Explorer. No blood was found on his luggage. No blood was found in the Hampton Inn room booked under his name. Klinkosum argued that Young would not have had time to do what prosecutors contended and not have been bloodied.

Was it a plot?

Prosecutors contended that Jason Young plotted to kill his wife.

But Klinkosum pointed out that Young talked to family and friends from his cell phone on Nov. 2 while traveling to Hillsville, Va., and no one reported any oddities in those conversations.

During one call, Young and a college buddy talked about heat pump warranties, sports and tailgating. "It's regular Jason who's out there freewheeling and wanting to have fun," Klinkosum said.

Klinkosum reminded jurors of evidence indicating that others might have been in the Young house - two cigarette butts with DNA from men never identified, a hair on a wedding frame, a jewelry box that had a mixture of DNA that matched neither of the Youngs and an unidentified print on the cap of a Tylenol bottle found in Cassidy Young's bedroom.

Prosecutors contend that Young drugged his daughter so she would sleep through the violence. The defense argued that someone had to clean up Cassidy Young after the killing and Jason Young would not have had time.

Cassidy, just 2 at the time of her mother's death, tracked bloody sock prints from her parents' bedroom to her bathroom down the hall. Yet when Meredith Fisher, the girl's aunt, found her at the crime scene, she had no blood on her pajamas or bare feet.

Activity at the hotel

Prosecutors contend Young disabled a security camera at the Hampton Inn so he could leave and return undetected.

But Klinkosum pointed out that Jason Young went into the hotel lobby shortly before midnight, no hat on, no coat pulled up around his face, asked a clerk for a USA Today and then went down the hall where a security camera was.

"If he's such a genius to pull off a murder like this why does he go back to the front desk?" Klinkosum said.

A convenience store clerk in King, about an hour south of Hillsville, Va., testified that Young bought gas from her at 5:30 a.m. Nov. 3. But the defendant said he was not there. Young and his attorneys argue that her early descriptions of the man did not match Young; that she had been influenced by a photo investigators showed her.

Character points

Young was a lousy husband, his attorneys acknowledged, cheating on his wife and acting immaturely.

"The state is stringing together a bunch of innocuous events and trying to tell you they mean something," Bryan Collins said.

"He has acted like an immature jerk," Klinkosum added. "They want you to convict him based on the fact that you don't like him."

Assistant District Attorney David Saacks argued that absence of evidence at the crime scene was "not evidence of absence." He urged jurors to consider the testimony from family and friends, the state of Young's marriage and his extramarital trysts in the weeks before his wife's death.

Investigators found evidence of his DNA on a palm print on molding of the bedroom closet door, but defense attorneys argued it would be common to find Young's DNA or prints in his home.

Investigators found two shoe prints - one made by a size 12 Hush Puppies shoe and another made by a size 10 Franklin athletic shoe. Young testified that although he had a pair of size 12 Hush Puppies, he thought his wife had either thrown them away or given them to charity.

He said he never bought Franklin athletic shoes.

"There's no one thing that we're going to tell you and show you and bring to you that's going to say the defendant is the killer," Saacks said. "It's all of it. It's the totality of it. There's too much pointing to the defendant to think otherwise, (to think) that it couldn't be the defendant."

Becky Holt, the lead prosecutor, urged jurors to look critically at Young's actions. He waited until Wednesday, 1,693 days after his wife's death, to say what he was up to in the hours before and after the homicide. Young said he was following the advice of an attorney. But Holt questioned why he had not talked with family or friends or asked investigators their theories of what happened to the spouse he professed to love.

"These aren't normal human reactions," Holt said. "Tell Jason Young by your verdict that you're not buying what he's trying to sell. Tell Jason Young that his story, and his tears on the witness stand, are too little too late."