Jason Young live blog: Night clerk remembers unusual events at Hampton Inn

Tuesday is the second day of Jason Young’s retrial for first-degree murder in Raleigh. Here is NBC-17’s live blog of what’s happening in Wake County Superior Court.

5:01 p.m.: Testimony concluded for the day. 

3:43 p.m.: Night clerk Keith Hicks from the Hampton Inn in Hillsville, Va., is on the stand. Hicks came to work around 11 p.m. that night and worked the overnight shift.

He testified that he saw a door on the west side propped open by a rock and kicked the rock out. He also said he noticed that the surveillance camera that watched that exit had been disconnected.

Within half an hour of it being re-connected, the camera had been pushed to where it was facing the ceiling tiles.

"It was very unusual," he told prosecutor Howard Cummings.

Later, when concluding his testimony, he said, when he saw the camera unplugged, "It gave me an uneasy feeling."

Under cross examination from defense attorney Bryan Collins, Hicks said there were 86 guest rooms in the inn that day, and that Jason Young didn't stand out to him.

"He didn't stand out from the other hundreds of guests that come through," he said.

2:46 p.m.: Trial back in session. Testimony now is about Jason Young checking into the Hampton Inn in Hillsville, Va. He checked in just before 11 p.m. - right at 10:54 p.m., according to the receipt.

On cross examination, the clerk from the second shift - who worked until 11 p.m. - said Jason Young did not appear unusual or remarkable at the time.

The clerk also said he didn't notice any problems with the surveillance cameras in the hotel before he left at 11 p.m. the night of Nov. 2, 2011.

1:18 p.m.: Trial just broke for lunch. Defense attorney Bryan Collins has been questioning Meredith Fisher.

Collins, in a polite voice, took two key lines of attack.

First, he got Fisher to say she couldn't remember a time when Jason had physically hurt Michelle.

And second, he questioned Meredith on some details, pushing her on how well she remembered some events.

12:47 p.m.: Meredith Fisher, the sister of Michelle, continued her long tenure on the stand Tuesday, describing a marriage that took a turn for the worst in 2006.

Meredith said she talked to both Michelle and Jason Young about the possibility of divorce.

“You deserve to be happy, you deserve to be treated right,” she remembers telling Michelle. “I had similar discussions with Jason – ‘If this isn’t what you want, move on.’”

Meredith testified that she remembers a comment from Jason in particular about divorce.

“He had said it’d be even more difficult being divorced from her than it is being married to her,” Meredith testified.

They argued about financial issues, in addition. For example, Michelle was pregnant with a second child, and she wanted her mother to be close by to help with child care and save on expenses. But that was a concern for Jason, who clashed with his mother-in-law.

By the fall of 2006, Meredith said, Michelle had lost much of her spirit and fight.

“As time progressed, especially leading up to Nov. 3, she had gotten withdrawn. She was just sad all the time. She was depressed. She was miserable.”

11:35 a.m.: Meredith Fisher recalled an odd night, one that left her with a weird feeling, after she found her sister dead on Nov. 3, 2006.

It was after 9 p.m. when Jason Young arrived at her home, where everyone gathered. Jason was with his mother, Pat, and his sister and her husband.

He went straight to a back bedroom, where Cassidy was sleeping, and stayed back there. Meredith testified that the police arrived and Jason refused to speak with them.

“He wasn’t planning on doing that,” she testified. “He stayed in the bedroom and said no.”

She said the police, standing on her front porch, explained to her that the first 24 to 48 hours were critical in a criminal investigation. They had, she said, a sense of urgency to talk to him.

But Jason was adamant. He would not speak to them, and would not come to the door to listen to what they had to say.

Meredith said “he wanted to speak to an attorney and he wasn’t willing to speak to the police until he had an attorney.”

“I left with a bad taste in my mouth after that conversation,” she said.

10:48 a.m.: Meredith Fisher just walked jurors through what she saw at the scene when she arrived. With prosecutor Becky Holt holding up photographs, Fisher described what she saw when she arrived in the bedroom of her sister, Michelle.

"That's the small of her back that I touched," she said, her voice quivering. 

Michelle's 2-year-old daughter, Cassidy, had left a baby doll beside her dead mother. Seeing that photo again was particularly difficult. Asked what was in a particular photo by Holt, Meredith said, 

"This is Cassidy’s baby doll. One of her favorite baby dolls," she said, pointing to the photo with tears welling in her eyes. 

10:08 a.m.: Meredith Fisher described a brutal scene she could barely believe when she arrived at Michelle Young's home. 

"There was blood every where, pillows all over the floor,  blood in Cassidy’s bathroom," she said.

"I was hoping against hope that it was a joke. I didn't think I was seeing what I was seeing."

Prosecutor Becky Holt asked her about what she found her sister wearing. Michelle was wearing a zip-up sweat shirt, which is not what she normally would have worn to bed. Meredith said the Young's heat pump had been out for "several weeks," so the house would have been colder.

9:46 a.m.: Court back in session. The prosecutors are playing the 911 call from Nov. 3, when Meredith Fisher went to the Young home Nov. 3, 2006, and found her sister, Michelle, in a pool of blood.

You can hear Meredith say, “She’s cold” and that Michelle’s body is stiff.

Meredith asked Cassidy, “Was anybody here sweetie?” But on the 911 call, you can’t hear Cassidy’s answer. She apparently said no.