By KATHY MELLOTT
The Tribune-Democrat
BEDFORD
June 23, 2008 10:52 pm
—
The Dauphin County jury hearing the capital murder case of Joseph Clark “visited” key sites in the case via four state police videos.
Nearly 90 minutes of footage showed key sites to the jury. They included the Monroe Township farm of murder victim Holly Notestine; the nearby Clark farm; the township site where her remains were found in 2004; and Hancock, Md., where Clark maintains he spent much of the afternoon and evening of April 30, 2000 – the day of the crime.
The video was presented after Bedford County District Attorney William Higgins, using an enlarged map of Bedford County and parts of Maryland, showed jurors the locations of the sites.
Members of the Butler County jury who heard the first Clark trial five months ago asked to be taken to each location, a request that was denied because much has changed at the farm where Notestine lived.
Higgins said the video was important because it shows the murder trip – from Hancock to Notestine’s house to where the body was dumped to Clark’s house – could have been made within a half-hour.
The video also showed that a key road on that route was not a “goat path,” as Clark testified in his first trial, Higgins said.
Clark, 49, was a suspect from the beginning when Notestine’s son, Logan Grubb, 4, told police the man who took his mother looked like “Tiny,” a nickname he and his sister, Chasity, had for Clark, a frequent visitor.
Judge Daniel Howsare permitted Clark to move from the defense table to a spot in front of the judge’s bench to watch the video presentation as it was shown to the jury.
Much of the day’s testimony came from state police Cpl. Courtney Light, who headed the investigation.
Light testified that, in an initial interview in May 2000, Clark, who was accompanied by his mother, Eunice, said he arrived home from Hancock between 9 and 10 p.m. His mother interjected it was before 9 p.m. and Clark agreed, Light said.
Light will retake the witness stand this morning.
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