the baseball didn't get him convicted by itself, her dna in his bedroom did.
and although her dna was also on bat, it is not proof infinite that he used the bat in the way he said he used it on tape.
However, his convo with TB saying they had the bat caused him worry...
They would have had him with or without the bat.
Two parts, because it is long...
You are right. The bat didn’t do it by itself, but it *is* a critical component. Plenty of her DNA in the apartment proved she was there, so the would have had him on the two counts of lying to the FBI, easy. Would the blood and DNA in the bedroom *alone* be enough to get him on kidnapping result8ng in death? Maybe, maybe not. Would the blood and DNA PLUS his words, PLUS all the info about the duffel bag, PLUS the bat and the DNA on it, PLUS the cadaver dog alerting in the bathroom, PLU the fact that she has not been seen or heard from since June 9th be enough? Yes.
Jurors are allowed to make inferences that something happened based on the evidence in hand and reasoning. If they weren’t allowed to do this, then the only way you could prove that he used the bat on her would be video of him using it on her, plus her blood/DNA on it. Heck, the only way you could *prove* she was killed would be her body with wounds on it as described, or video of her being killed.
Consider the use of the duffel bag. The government contends he used it to carry her into the apartment. We have more physical evidence showing he used the bat than we do showing he used the duffel bag. But we have plenty of evidence, coupled with reasoning, that allows a jury to infer that he used the bag to kidnap her:
1)Buys bag in March, returns it.
2)Tells Counseling Center he bought stuff to do a kidnapping-murder, but returned it.
3)Tries to set up consensual kidnapping, describes how he will use big duffel bag to do it.
4)Buys bag again, delivered June 6th.
5)Michelle sees him with the bag
6)He gets rid of the bag.
(END PART ONE)