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Last updated on Monday, August 1, 2016
(NASHVILLE) - Jury selection continues today in the trial of 50-year-old Daniel Messel today in Brown County Circuit court.
Messell, a print shop worker from Bloomington, is accused of killing 22-year-old Hannah Wilson, two weeks before she was to graduate from Indiana University. A passerby found Wilson's body on April 24, 2015 in a parking lot laying face down at State Road 45 and Plum Creek Road near Helmsburg. Wilson had been reported missing the day before the discovery of her body. Messell's cell phone was found next to her body.
An autopsy determined that Wilson had died from blunt force injuries to the back of her head.
Messel was arrested at his home on Ison Road, where police say they found him carrying a clear trash bag containing jeans, shoes and a t-shirt stained with Wilson's blood. Wilson's blood was also found in his 2012 Kia Sportage.
Messel is charged with murder and with being a habitual criminal. On Thursday and Friday, about 145 jurors were called in for questioning about exposure to pretrial publicity; 86 will return Monday morning for more thorough inquiries from Prosecutor Ted Adams and defense attorney Dorie Maryan.
Maryan told the investigation was not thorough and that officials disregarded other possible suspects in the case. She says Wilson had none of Messel's DNA on her body or clothes, but had unidentified male DNA under a fingernail, and that tire tracks found where Wilson's body was left did not match Messel's SUV's tires.
However Adams says the evidence is overwhelming and will convict Messel of the crime.
Brown Circuit Judge Judith Stewart hopes to have a jury selected by the end of the day today. There will be 12 jurors and four alternates chosen. The trial is expected to last about two weeks.
Wilson disappeared after she was out partying during Little 500 Weekend in 2015 when friends decided she was too intoxicated and paid a cab driver to take her to her house on East Eighth Street. Police say she arrived there, but went missing soon after. Her body was discovered hours later.
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