the trial is taking so long because of short court days, there have been lots of breaks, but for me the main thing is the irrelevant information the state seems to think the jury needs to hear, April the ex girlfriend of IM testified and the state asked her about her career and went over her and IM relationship from 2003. completely not relevant to trial, all they needed from her was her knowledge of his drinking, his 2 DUI are important as is the knowledge that he had there minor child in the trial for both DUI, this points to his reckless behavior and his continued drinking and driving even though he had been caught once, his drinking could also be tenuously used to say whilst he was looking round for a home to rob he saw the coolers of beer in AF back garden and went in to rob them, she heard him outside and that was when he attacked and killed her, I do not understand why they had to go over his drinking for what felt like hours, we get it he drank, he has two dui so no need to belabor the point
I think there is an argument to be made that he was in the alley behind AF and other homes looking for things to steal from gardens, garages or sheds, not necessarily to go into a home and AF heard him opened the arcadia door and went to see what noise was, his drinking which April testified to made him reckless and braver than usual, Dutch courage
April was also to be used as a witness to say he did enjoy strangling her as part of sex, to tie him to AF murder who was strangled, he also bashed her head in which I feel was the first attack and strangulation was to finish her off as the bashing hadn't, she also was sleeping in different room and they were not having sex,
She also gave LE her online journal so it would have been more effective to focus on entries in her diary as they are related to specific events related to his drinking with times and dates, plus he wasn't home on night of murder she doesn't know what time he came in. IM had temper when drinking, would say derogatory sexual things to her in front of kids, was concerning to her but she still stayed with him,
her memory is also very poor as is to be expected as they started dating in 2003, so many things she is testifying to she can't date, such as when she says he began to be secretive about locking the safe, and his office desk, she has no idea when this began, state had to elicit the secret safe locking as IM says he put 1,000 dollars in bank (state say he stole it off AF) he says got from brother, as he wouldn't put it in safe he says was in his office as it would beep and wake her up and defense is using this to say April was monitoring IM and noting down all the bad things for future custody issues, they broke up many times, she can't remember when, 2016 last time she left, they were still together when he murdered AF and for a period after,
she is going over and over about his drinking, and he was a poor parent but she wanted to remain a family, what relevance is this to the murder, it sounds like a common garden toxic relationship that should have ended as soon as it started, Craig his brother protective of IM, this is the one IM says gave him 100o dollars on night of murder, so just putting in jurors minds he may be testifying how he is to protect his brother, not because its the truth
The more I learn of this murder the less I think it initially was sexually motivated, I think he was looking for stuff to rob as he was financially strapped, then once AF saw him he attacked her, and decided he had to kill her as she would report him to LE, the assault with the bottle is an aggressive attack as much as sexual, and seems to have been done as he was incredibly angry with AF as she literally fought him to her last breath, the assault with bottle was done when she was alive,
IM has 3 bothers, knew Craig best, met his parents once or twice, spoke to Craigs wife a lot, Craig will testify
IM drinking caused huge financial problems, she went back to work to make her own money so she could eventually leave him, 2014 went back to work, 2014-15 relationship done in her eyes, sleeping separately , no sex. she was so done by this point, no sex sore spot with IM, when they did have sex IM enjoyed choking her, she was ok with it at times. not sure who introduced the choking, she enjoyed light pressure only, IM choked her harder than she was comfortable with, IM did not listen when she said he choked too hard, 2014-15 no sex IM said more derogatory stuff.,