Jason Young trial: Michelle suffered 'at least 30 blows'

RALEIGH, N.C. --

Testimony in the murder trial of Jason Young opened with an explosive start Wednesday as Meredith Fisher, the sister of the murdered Michelle Young, recalled when she found the body on Nov. 3, 2006.

Fisher, speaking in Wake County Superior Court, said Jason Young had left a voice mail on her cell phone at 12:14 p.m. that day, asking her to go by the couple’s house in the Enchanted Oaks subdivision south of Raleigh to get a piece of paper about a leather purse he wanted to buy for Michelle for a third anniversary gift.

Fisher thought the request was unusual – their anniversary had been in October, and Jason rarely called on her cell phone. But she went to the house and was surprised to see Michelle’s car there and the door unlocked.

She went inside and started calling out for her sister. While heading upstairs, she saw red liquid she at first thought was hair dye. Instead, when she reached upstairs and peered into the master bedroom, she saw the bludgeoned body of her sister.

Through tears on the witness stand, she said she saw “a lot of blood. And Michelle laying on the floor. On her stomach.”

“I thought it was … it was just processing. I thought it was a joke. I didn’t know what to think,” she testified. “I started to panic. I went to the other side of the bed and got the phone and started to call 911. I didn’t know what to do.

“As soon as I picked up and went to press the Number 9, Cassidy [the couple’s 2-year-old daughter] looked up from underneath the blanket and just kind of stared at me.”

Did you know she was there? Prosecutor Beck y Holt asked.

“No.”

After a pause, Fisher said, “She climbed up off the bed and hugged onto me like a koala bear. And I called 911.”

Through tears, Fisher recalled Cassidy saying, “Mommy has boo boos everywhere. She needs a washcloth.’

“She kept on asking for Bandaids for Mommy and her boo boos.”

Fisher said she checked on Michelle’s body, and, “She was ice cold.”

Dr. Thomas Clark, the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy in Chapel Hill in November 2006, followed Fisher to the stand. He said he found multiple blows that included blows to the upper arm, teeth knocked out, extensive lacerations on the left side and fractures to the skull and jaw bone.

“There have to be at least 30 blows,” he said. “It couldn’t have been inflicted in less than 30 blows.”

On cross-examination by the defense team, Clark said he had no opinion on the order of the injuries. Asked if he had an opinion on who killed Young, he said, “I have no opinion about the identity of who inflicted these injuries.”

The defense, too, gave hints of where it is headed in its cross-examination of Fisher. Defense attorney Bryan Collins questioned the time frame Fisher had established in testimony and established she had been at the Carolina Ale House deep into the night the day before she discovered her sister.

He also pointed out that an expensive ring that had been on Michelle’s finger was not on her body and has not been found, and that two drawers in Michelle’s jewelry box were missing.

Judge Donald Stephens dismissed the jurors at 4:50 p.m. and the trial will resume Thursday at 9:30 p.m.

Here is NBC17.com's Live Blog from testimony in the Jason Young murder trial from Wednesday, June 8, 2011.

4:45 p.m.., more cross examination: After a question from defense attorney Bryan Collins, Meredith Fisher said she did not remember saying that she and her mother "were going to get Jason."

Prosecutor Becky Holt is now following up with Fisher.

4:10 p.m., cross examination: Defense attorney Bryan Collins grilled Meredith Fisher on her time frame. He pressed her on how much she had to drink on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2006, the night before she found Michelle Young dead. In the cross examination, she said she had “four, maybe five” drinks at a Carolina Ale House after she worked her shift at a restaurant.

She had previously said she left the Ale House earlier than Collins established.

She testified that she waited in the parking lot when she was finished, and that she went to a nearby gas station to get a pretzel. Collins said the video from the station showed she was there between 3:37 a.m. and 3:59 a.m.

Collins is pushing her on details of her testimony and challenging her memory of some of the specifics.

He also made some key points for the defense - that a large ring was missing from Michelle's finger, that two drawers were missing from her jewelry box, and that the couple had no serious financial problems.

3:29 p.m., Young suffered 30 blows: Michelle Young suffered a brutal death from multiple blows, as a pathologist testified Wednesday in the murder trial of Jason Young.

Dr. Thomas Clark, who performed the autopsy in Chapel Hill in November 2006, said he found multiple blows that included:

Three or four blows to the upper left arm
Several front teeth knocked out
An abrasion on the back of the neck and a small one on the side of the neck
Bruises on the left side of the head
Eight blows to her left side that resulted in cuts that were 1 to 3 inches long
Fractures to the jaw bone
Bruises on both hands
Fractures to the skull
Evidence of strangulation from finger marks on the neck

“There have to be at least 30 blows,” he said. “It couldn’t have been inflicted in less than 30 blows. For most of the wounds, yes, a weapon would have been required.

Some of the injuries could have been done with a fist. The fingernail marks from strangulation were not done with a weapon. …

“The only thing I can say about the weapon is it was heavy and it was definitely a blunt object.”

3:00 p.m., back in session: The courtroom just heard two cell phone calls from Jason Young to Meredith Fisher, where he was calling on Nov. 3, 2006, to see if she had been to their home to find a printout for a purse he wanted to give Michelle as a gift. Fisher testified that Young had rarely called her on her cell phone. Jason Young’s mother also called her, and Fisher testified that she had not called her on her cell before.

She concluded her direct testimony.

Seated next in the witness chair is Dr. Thomas Clark, a forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy on Michelle Young, is now testifying. He performed the autopsy in Chapel Hill on Nov. 4 2006. He is now based in Washington state.

1:10 p.m., Fisher believes Jason Young is guilty: Meredith Fisher testified after finding Michelle Young’s body on Nov. 3, she was at her home in Fuquay-Varina that night with her mother, Jason Young, his daughter Cassidy and other family members.

She said the police came to visit to get statements, but Jason Young repeatedly refused to speak to them. He was in a bedroom with a sleeping Cassidy when Fisher first asked him to come to the door to speak to police. She said he consistently refused, telling her he wanted to speak to an attorney.

Fisher said the police explained that the case was a homicide, and they needed answers to certain questions. She said Young agreed to talk to her only on the back deck to answer questions, such as whether there were weapons in the house. They talked for about 10 minutes.

“He ultimately gave me a hug and made a noise like he was crying,” she said. “His eyes were not bloodshot. No tears ever fell. To me it felt like fake crying.”

She said the Youngs had a $1 million insurance policy on Michelle Young, which Fisher thought was “excessive.”

She said Jason Young's refusal to talk to police and to answer questions from the family caused her concerns to grow.

She said she asked him, “Why won’t you talk to the police? Why won’t you answer my questions? Why won’t you answer anyone’s questions?’”

She said he had once told her he was going to speak to an attorney, but she testified he did not.

“Once I found out he never went to his attorney to talk to the police I started to further bolster my thoughts and concerns,” she said.

Asked by prosecutor Becky Holt what those concerns were, she said, “I thought he killed my sister.”

12:21 p.m., a shocking scene: Meredith Fisher first thought the dark red fluid she saw upstairs in the Young house was hair dye that the young’s daughter, Cassidy, had gotten into. It wasn’t until she got to the top of the steps to the second floor and looked to the right, where Jason and Michelle Young shared a master bedroom, that she saw her sister’s body.

Through tears on the witness stand Wednesday in a Wake County courtroom, she said she saw, “a lot of blood. And Michelle laying on the floor. On her stomach.”

She told prosecutor Becky Holt she was stunned by what she saw.

“I thought it was … it was just processing. I thought it was a joke. I didn’t know what to think,” she said. “I started to panic. I went to the other side of the bed and got the phone and started to call 911. I didn’t know what to do.

“As soon as I picked up and went to press the Number 9, Cassidy looked up out the end from underneath the blanket and just kind of stared at me.

Did you know she was there? Holt asked.

“No.”

After a pause, Fisher said, “She climbed up off the bed and hugged onto me like a koala bear. And I called 911.”

Fisher said she tried to hold Cassidy so she wouldn’t see her mother, and had to explain to the person on 911 that she was limited in what she could do. He asked her to put Cassidy somewhere for a moment.

“I explained that I had her with me and I couldn’t do what they were asking me to do. They asked me to put her somewhere else. I tried to put her in her bedroom but she didn’t want to go to her bedroom. She kept trying to pull me to get Bandaids and a washcloth,” Fisher testified.

Through tears, Fisher recalled Cassidy saying, “Mommy has boo boos everywhere. She needs a washcloth.’

“She kept on asking for Bandaids for Mommy and her boo boos.”

Fisher said she checked on Michelle’s body, and realized she was dead.

“I went to try to move her and I felt the small of her back and she was ice cold,” she said.

12:03 p.m., dog wimpering: Meredith Fisher knew something was wrong when she got into house and could hear the Youngs' dog, Mr. Garrison.

"It wasn't a bark. It was more like a loud wimper," she said.

11:58 p.m., what she saw: Meredith Fisher is describing coming into the house now and exactly what she saw when she entered Jason and Michelle Young's house on Nov. 3, 2006. She has not gotten to when she saw Michelle's body yet, but said she saw Michelle's car, saw her purse in the house and knew she was there and started calling for her.

11:30 a.m., quick break at key time: Judge Donald Stephens just called a 15-minute break. Just before that, Meredith Fisher was describing the day she went to her sister Michelle's house, the day she discovered her sister dead. That was Friday, Nov. 3, 2006.

Fisher said Jason Young had asked her to go to the house and get a printout for a purse he wanted to buy for their wedding anniversary, which had been the previous month. Fisher went to the house and was surprised to hear water running and to see Michelle's car there.

Right as she was describing heading into the house, Stephens called for a brief recess.

11:25 p.m., tough times for marriage: Meredith Fisher, the sister of Michelle Young, testified Wednesday morning that Jason and Michelle Young had tried to patch up their marriage, including a long conversation on Friday, Oct. 27, 2006, and then a “date night” at a restaurant on Saturday, Oct. 28, 2006.

Fisher said she was encouraged by the “date night” at the Lucky 32 restaurant where she worked. The marriage had been so difficult that Fisher said the couple would only correspond via email most of the time. Otherwise, the conversations led to slamming doors and the silent treatment.

But that date didn’t work out. Fisher said. On Tuesday – Halloween – Fisher said Michelle said the problems were continuing.

On Wednesday, she said Michelle told her she had had enough.

“She had had it. After four or five hours on Friday, going to date night, and then not a week later, she was like, I’’ve had it.’ She said that more than one time. ‘I can’t do this any more,’”

Fisher discovered Michelle Young’s body days later.

10:45, emotional moment: The full impact of the trial just became quite real. Prosecutor Becky Holt showed Meredith Fisher, sister of Michelle Young, some photos of Michelle. One showed Michelle pregnant with her second child, and her belly clearly starting to protrude. Holt asked Fisher to identify the photo and Fisher, dabbing her eyes, said, “It’s Michelle in her bedroom and she’s pregnant.”

You just couldn’t watch that moment without a lump welling up in your throat.

Fisher is still testifying now.

10:39 a.m., Fisher describes difficult marriage: Meredith Fisher, the sister of Michelle Young, described a difficult marriage between Michelle and Jason Young. She had worked for the couple as a nanny and was in the home often.

“It was this [she butted her fists together] constantly,” Meredith Fisher said. “There was no resolution. They didn’t hear each other. The fundamental issues were never getting resolved.”

Fisher said the marriage was marked by slamming doors and the silent treatment.

“It was like a high school relationship when it came to learning how to argue and how to resolve things,” she said.

She said she agreed, after Michelle asked, to help serve as a counselor since she had plans to go to graduate school and become a counselor with a focus on marriage counseling.

“Michelle’s main issues were Jason being more responsible, helping out around the house, understanding her more,” Fisher said. “His main concern was their lack of sex life. And that Michelle, after an argument, would immediately call her mom or me.

“They couldn’t move past those points. It would always cycle back to those issues.

10:20 a.m.., Michelle's sister on the stand: Michelle Young's sister, Meredith Fisher, is on the stand now, sometimes dabbing her moist eyes as she recounts her sister.

Fisher, 30, lives in Fuquay-Varina. She explained that her sister went to N.C. State, was in the ADPi sorority there.

Fisher originally came to North Carolina from their Long Island home to help her sister with their daughter, Cassidy. Prosecutor Becky Holt is walking Fisher through the background now.

Fisher is the one who found her sister's bloody body, but she has not testified about that yet.

9:55 a.m., don’t worry about the cameras: Judge Donald Stephens assured jurors that they did not have to worry about their photos being in the media during the trial. He explained that the media uses a “pool” camera, and the video from that is shared with all media outlets, including NBC-17. He said that would not show the faces of the jury.

“No member of the media will take your picture, will follow you down the steps, will go outside and try to take your picture. That will not happen,” he said. “If it does, let me know and it will not happen again because I will pull the camera out of the courtroom and the media knows that.”

He encouraged the jurors to have an open mind as they listened to evidence, and to not rush to early decisions.

He also addressed whether the jury can ask questions of witnesses.

“The answer to that is no,” he said. “When you ask questions, you become investigators.”

9 a.m., previewing the case: The Jason Young trial resumed Wednesday morning, a day after the prosecution and defense offered dramatically different versions of Jason Young’s guilt in opening statements in Wake County Superior Court.

Judge Donald Stephens called in the jury after a meeting about administrative matters involving the case.

Wake County Assistant District Attorney Becky Holt said in her opening remarks to the jury Tuesday that Jason Young murdered his wife, and had a plan to do so,

"The defendant had a plan. His plan was to murder his wife and get on with his life. On his terms," Holt said.

However, Holt said, Jason Young was surprised.

"He didn't expect there would be a fight," Holt said. "He didn't expect there would be blood."

He thought he could surprise her and strangle her, but, Holt said, "That's not what happened. He struck her and he struck her and there was blood all over the place. He left evidence he didn't expect to leave."

But defense attorney Mike Klinkosum insisted Tuesday that Holt didn't tell jurors the entire story.

Klinkosum said a hair found on a picture frame in their bedroom did not match either member of the couple, and said other evidence would show Jason Young was not guilty.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this young man did not kill his wife," Klinkosum said. "This case is not solved."

Michelle Young was 29 and pregnant with the couple's second child when she was killed. Her sister found her body in the couple's master bedroom on Nov. 3, 2006.

Klinkosum acknowledged that Jason Young was unfaithful to his wife and made mistakes.

"He acted at times like an immature jerk," Klinkosum said. "But that does not make him a killer."

Klinkosum also admitted to the jury that Jason Young did not speak with police, but he said Young was following the advice of his attorneys and "just shut down" overall under the immense pressure.

"He knew people were after him," Klinkosum said. "The mob wanted him. And he didn't talk to anybody."