Live blog: Clerk remembers Jason Young cursing her at convenience store

NBC17.com is live blogging the Jason Young murder trial in Raleigh. Here is coverage of Wednesday's third day of testimony.

• VIDEO: CNN Analyst Vinnie Politan explains why it will be difficult to prosecute Jason Young. Watch video.

4:39 p.m.: Gracie Dahms Calhoun now on the stand. She was working overnight at the Four Brothers convenience store in King, N.C. That's north of Winston-Salem and between Winston-Salem and Hillsville, Va.

She said she saw Jason Young drive up to the pump that night. The pumps would not come on unless someone used a credit card or came inside to pay cash. 

She said Young tried to pump the gas at the pump.

"He kept hitting the buzzer," she said. "He kept trying and trying and I kept hitting 'ignore.'"

Finally, she said, a newspaper delivery person stepped outside the store.

"He stepped out there and yelled out, 'You have to come in and pay," Calhoun said.

She said Young came in after that.

"When he came in to pay he started cussing and raising Cain and threw a 20 at me and told me he would get 20 and walked out," she said.

She said she and the man at the pump were face to face at that point. Asked to identify the man, she pointed at Jason Young.

She said Young only pumped $15 in gas and then left. She said she got a good look at his car as he left.

It was, she said, "A white SUV." 

Calhoun's testimony is critical because it places Jason Young between Hillsville and Raleigh the night of the murder.

3:41 p.m.: Elmer Goad, the maintenance man from the Hampton Inn in Hillsville, Va., said he arrived around 5 a.m. on the night of Nov. 3, 2006. He said they noticed a camera was unplugged at the west end about 5:15 a.m. He said he and Keith Hicks, the night clerk, got a stepladder and went to unplug it. 

He said he checked the monitor and the camera was now functioning.

“I’d say within an hour after that, we looked and it was pointing up at the ceiling and the wall," he said. "So I went back and checked it and somebody had hit it hard enough to knock it up toward the ceiling.

“Same camera.”

 He said he'd "never seen a camera messed with" in the nine years he had worked there.

3:09 p.m.: Shelly Schaad back on the stand. She just told Prosecutor Becky Holt how Michelle told her about finding some other woman's panties after Michelle and Jason returned from a trip to Puerto Rico.

Shelly said Jason told Michelle they must be Shelly's and Michelle called her to ask about that. She said no, that they did not belong to her. She said Jason then said the panties must have been found and left by a maid back in Puerto Rico.

The prosecutors, of course, are trying to show Jason was unfaithful and is not trustworthy.

The defense asked her some specific questions about that night. She remembered how she had an eerie feeling that night, like they were being watched. And she said Michelle had not liked the location of the house once late fall came and the leaves had fallen, exposing a trailer park not far from the house.

She said she couldn't remember if Michelle was wearing her wedding rings that night or not.

1:36 p.m.: The court is now in a lunch break.

But here's one interesting point that came in out Wednesday morning's testimony, when prosecutor Becky Holt asked questions of Meredith Fisher after the defense had finished.

Fisher, for the first time, said 2-year-old Cassidy had mentioned her father that day in the house, when they found Michelle's body. Meredith had been on a 911 call - in testimony, Meredith  said, 

“Earlier in the phone call she had referenced her father. And then when I asked her further questions, she was saying ‘he,'" Fisher testified.

Did you talk to Cassidy? Holt asked. 

 “There on that day, when we were in the fire truck, she continued to talk about her father," she said. "And later when we got back to my house, a child psychologist was there, but she had just shut down.”

1:05 p.m.: The last time Shelly Schaad saw Michelle Young was the night Michelle died. 

The last night Schelly Shaad saw Michelle Young was the night Michelle died. She went over to dinner at the Young’s house to talk about her recent honeymoon in Italy and have a chance to catch up with one of her closest college friends.

She was surprised Jason Young was still at the home when she arrived on Nov. 2, 2006. Both she and Michelle offered to let him stay and eat but he said no, that he was going to stop at the Cracker Barrel in Greensboro.

He left sometime between 7 and 7:30 p.m., she said.

What struck her about that night, as she remembered it, was what a wonderful mother Michelle had become.She had always known Michelle as impatient, but yet that night, she patiently bathed her 2-year-old daughter Cassidy and watched as Cassidy tried, without success, to put on her socks herself.

“I remember thinking, Wow, look at Michelle and where she is now. She was an awesome mother and had a lot of patience with Cassidy.”

And she remembered a long conversation with Michelle that night, in part touching on some of the continuing problems in her marriage.

Michelle wanted her mother, Linda Fisher, to be a part of Thanksgiving with Jason’s family in Brevard – Jason said no. And Michelle wanted Linda to stay with them over Christmas, but Jason adamantly wanted to limit that to a few days.

Michelle told her that she and Jason had fought so much recently that Meredith, Michelle’s younger sister, had mediated a fight.

But overall, Schaad was struck by how “defeated” Michelle seemed.

“She was just blank. She was just defeated,” Schaad recalled. “She just shut down. I couldn’t talk to her. She wouldn’t open up to me about things that were going on."

12:14 p.m.: Michelle Fisher and Jason Young met at the Pour House in Raleigh, a downtown bar, as Shelly Schaad remembers. Jason and Michelle were together after that, but their relationship was always rocky. Michelle eventually moved in with Jason and with a friend of his, Ryan Schaad, who eventually married Shelly.

But there were always problems, Shelly said.

“They were either hot or cold. Sometimes they were great and a lot of times they were fighting," Schaad said. "They were not shy about fighting public, pulling us into the middle of it, so much so that it became uncomfortable at times."

Schaad also said Jason "was flirtatious with other people" and mentioned one time when he was hitting on a girl so much Shelly suggested that woman sleep in her room, away from Jason.

And, she said, "At times certainly [Jason]  was not afraid to show himself in public.

“One night at my house after a tailgate he urinated on the floor in my house on the rug. My husband threw him in the shower and he ran out completely naked and sat down on the sofa in front of a group of people. Like it was no big deal," she said.

“At the time we were shocked. We went along with it.”

Why did they fight, prosecutor Becky Holt asked.

“A lot of times they were silly, over things that didn’t really matter. They were constantly trying to one-up the other. And other times it was about the lack of sex in the relationship. Jason was not shy about telling us his opinion on that.”

Schaad remembered how miserable Michelle was just before Shelly and Ryan Schaad married on Oct. 14, 2006. She said Michelle was upset that Jason had not given her an anniversary gift and they had fought on the way to Winston-Salem for the Schaad's wedding.

The day before the wedding, Schaad recalled, "she was very upset. Just stayed in the corner. Sunken down."

Schaad said Michelle "put up a front" the next day, at the wedding.

11:46 a.m.: Shelly Schaad now on the stand. She met Michelle Young at their sorority at N.C. State, Alpha Delta Pi. Michelle Young - then Michelle Fisher - was her "big sister" in the sorority.

Schaad later moved into Michelle's condo with her. They lived together, in three different places, for about four years.

Michelle eventually moved to a townhome off Wade Avenue in Raleigh and lived with Jason Young and Ryan Schaad, who later married Shelly. Michelle, Jason and Ryan eventually moved to another townhome near the RBC Center.

10:52 a.m.: Scott Earp, a Wake County sheriff's deputy, is testifying now. He saw water running in a spigot in the back, which he thought was "odd." He also remembered seeing a purse on the kitchen floor, which he thought was unusual.

He said he went upstairs, to the bedroom, announced that he was there for the Wake County Sheriff's Office and heard nothing. He saw the body, the blood, and said, "I just assumed she was deceased."

10:25 a.m.: Meredith Fisher testified that she didn't feel afraid while in the house when she discovered Michelle's body. She said she never feared that there was someone in the house or that she might be in danger.

"I was just in panic mode," she said. "I didn’t think that anyone was in the house."

Defense attorney Bryan Collins asked about her not checking for a pulse or checking Michelle's air waves.

She said she didn't touch much in the house or do much because she had watched shows like CSI and realized it was a crime scene.

On cross examination, Earp told defense attorney Mike Klinkosum that he did not see any blood on the stairs or downstairs.

He also said he saw Cassidy, who appeared to be clean and had no blood on. He testified that he saw bloody footprints made from bare feet, but that Cassidy had socks on when he saw her. He said she was clothed and there was no blood on her clothing.

9:39 a.m.: Meredith Fisher is on the trial under cross examination from defense attorney Bryan Collins.

He is pushing her on some details. Fisher said she had "four or five" drinks the night of the murder but was "completely sober" the next day, when she discovered Michelle's body.

She said Michelle was always concerned about the family's financial situation, and it was her nature, and not Jason's, to be that way.

Attorney Collins asked about whether there was disagreement overe the date of the funeral, and she said there was. Collins also got Fisher to testify that Young offered to pay for the funeral.

Collins pushed her on a couple of points.

First, he talked about her conversation with Young on her deck when he came over after the murder. Asked if she saw any "scratches on his face," Fisher said, "Not that I noticed."

Asked if there were any on his hands, she said, "I didn’t pay particular attention to his hands. But I didn’t notice anything, no I did not."

Fisher testified earlier that she didn't see Young shed a single tear when they talked and hugged on her deck. Collins pressed her on this, noting that she didn't see him on the ride to Raleigh, or right after he learned of Michelle's death.