RALEIGH - Prosecutors today pressed forward with their murder case against Jakiem Wilson in the death of his wife, Nneka, despite a judge's ruling that banned evidence seized from the home where the killing took place.

Superior Court Judge Henry Hight Jr. this morning granted a defense motion to suppress the evidence on grounds that sheriff's investigators failed to show probable cause to search the Wilsons' home near Wendell. In an affidavit seeking the warrant, the investigators failed to say that Nneka died of foul play.

"The affidavit provides no information that her death was of unnatural origin as opposed to death by a stroke or heart attack," Hight ruled.

Nneka Wilson, a 2001 graduate of Enloe High School, was stabbed to death Feb. 12 in her neck and chest. The couple's two children were home at the time but were unharmed.

In opening statements to jurors, prosecutors said Wilson planned to kill his wife because he couldn't handle the responsibility of having a family. To convict Wilson of first-degree murder, punishable by life in prison or the death penalty, prosecutors need to show jurors that he acted with premeditation.

Two teenage friends, Jamie Holder and Roderick Howell, will testify that Wilson asked them to clean up evidence and stage a scene to make it appear that an intruder had committed the killing, said Assistant District Attorney Stephanie Davis. Wilson also told friends how he killed his wife, Davis told jurors. "He reenacted for them how he killed Nneka that night," she said. Later today, jurors heard from Claudette Hill, Nneka Wilson's mother, and listened to a tape of the 911 call from Jakiem Wilson when he claimed to have come home and found his wife dead. In the call, Wilson sobbed and said had found her in a pool of blood on the floor.

Wilson, 24, and his lawyers admit that he killed his wife, but the lawyers told jurors today that he had not planned the killing. If jurors agree, they could convict Wilson of second-degree murder, and he could receive a sentence shorter than life in prison.

One of his lawyers, Amos Tyndall, told jurors in an opening statement that the Wilsons' marriage was troubled, and he suggested that Wilson killed his wife in a sudden fit of rage. "Jakiem does not deny that he committed horrible acts that caused Nneka's death," Tyndall said, after telling jurors about Jakiem Wilson's troubled childhood.

The couple married after Nneka Wilson became pregnant just weeks after the two met.

This morning's ruling by Hight will keep prosecutors from presenting evidence seized during a search of the home, including a bloody footprint; blood samples from a living room wall, a table leg in the dining room, a comforter in the master bedroom and tiles on the kitchen floor; bleached clothing; six letters; two silver hatchets; a shotgun and numerous swabs of DNA evidence.

In addition, investigators seized a computer, seeking evidence Wilson had surfed the Internet shortly after his wife's death.

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