ROCKVILLE —
An in-depth review of witness statements and testimony dominated the afternoon in Parke Circuit Court as defense attorney James Bruner questioned the ex-girlfriend of Jeremy Musall on Tuesday.
Musall, 28, of Cloverdale, has been charged with two counts of felony murder, as well as two counts of burglary resulting in bodily injury, rape and kidnapping, all class-A felonies, stemming from the homicide of Joseph Snow at Rocky Fork Lake in southeastern Parke County.
Often referring to a diagram of the mobile home where Snow died in the early hours of Aug. 13, Bruner questioned and disputed the witness statements about events and the time sequence of actions on the night that Musall allegedly broke into the home that his ex-girlfriend shared with Snow.
While the witness said that she watched Musall smoke a cigarette, then snub out the butt on Snow’s eye, the autopsy did not reveal such a mark on Snow’s body, Bruner said. He also questioned the witness about “pokes” she said Musall made with a knife into the unconscious body of Snow. Again, such marks were not discovered in the autopsy, Bruner said.
“I’m sticking with it. I watched it,” the witness said.
Deputy Prosecutor Kevin Stalker opened the morning’s testimony by asking the woman to recap the events on the day prior to the early morning incident. The witness said she had recently ended a three-month relationship with Musall, and had resumed an off-and-on relationship with Snow, with whom she had a toddler daughter. The child was present in the home during the homicide.
The witness indicated that Musall was jealous of her relationship with Snow, and that since her break-up with Musall, the defendant had called her and sent text messages to her cell phone multiple times. He also showed up at her work at Cloverdale, and followed Snow in his car on the day prior to the incident.
“I was scared,” the woman said, indicating that Snow was also concerned about the safety of the witness, himself and their daughter.
The witness told Stalker that she awoke to find Musall standing in her bedroom, having allegedly beaten Snow bloody. She said the defendant told her she was going to “die tonight.”
The witness also recounted details of her alleged rape by Musall, and told how Musall allegedly made her help him load Snow’s body into the trunk of his car.
According to the Parke County Sheriff’s Department, a 911 call was received from a female at about 7:17 a.m. Aug. 13 reporting a homicide. The woman identified Musall as the suspect, and said that she was in a vehicle following Musall’s eastbound vehicle because the suspect had taken her 20-month-old child with him.
The woman told police that Musall intended to dump Snow’s body in a creek. Musall’s vehicle was located by police on West Walnut Street Road in Putnam County, but he evaded police. He was later located and arrested at his mother’s home near Cloverdale. The child was found unharmed in the car.
The body of Snow was found in a cornfield west of Greencastle.
The trial will resume this morning, and is scheduled to continue through Friday.
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