On the fourth day of the trial, court officials transported the 12 jury members and four alternate jurors to the Brown County Law Enforcement Center, where Daniel Messel's car sat waiting for the jury to look at it.
Jurors had seen at least a dozen photos of Messel's vehicle as witnesses identified what they called "blood spatters" consistent with blunt force trauma, which was Wilson's cause of death.
They were allowed into the building to circle the car, which had all doors opened, but could not touch anything. Messel was also escorted to the building, where he stood to the side while the jury looked at his car. Jurors were not allowed to talk or ask questions, and no testimony was given during this time.
Earlier in the day, Defense Attorney Dorie Maryan questioned Crime Scene Investigator Sgt. Christopher Lewis about how he made decisions about which items to send to a lab for DNA testing.
She asked Lewis why he collected a cigarette butt found near Wilson's body but didn't have it tested for DNA. She also asked Lewis why he did not test a loose short hair found on Wilson's body that did not seem to match her own hair.
Sgt. Lewis responded by saying DNA testing is expensive and time consuming and they have to limit the number of items they send to the lab.
Maryan also pointed out police only compared DNA from the victim and the defendant, without collecting DNA samples from anyone else, like the men who were with Wilson just before she disappeared.
Sgt. Dean Marks, who analyzed the blood spatter stains at the scene where Wilson was found as well as on the inside and outside of Messel's car, was next on the witness stand. He did not do the analysis on the scene, but initially through 827 photographs sent to him by Sgt. Lewis.
Marks described the types of blood spatter he typically sees at a crime scene and explained analysis of those patterns can show the locations of the people and objects involved.
Based on his analysis, Marks says Wilson's head was likely positioned near the ground next to the open door of Messel's vehicle when she was hit with a blunt force object. Although Marks explicitly described where Wilson's head could have been positioned, the prosecution has not entered evidence that the blood on the car was identified as Wilson's.
The final witness of the day was Patrick Deckard, a specialist in digital forensics. Deckard extracted data from both Hannah Wilson's phone and Daniel Messel's phone.
Deckard discussed how and when the phones were most recently used, confirming testimony heard earlier in the week from friends of both the victim and the defendant.
