Jason Young live blog: Defense presses its case in cross-examination

NBC17.com is live blogging the Jason Young murder trial in Wake County Superior Court. Here is Wednesday's coverage.

5:03 p.m.: Shawn Weiss of Lab Corp closed the day with his testimony. Defense attorney Mike Klinkosum asked him if both Jason and Michelle Young's DNA could be excluded from DNA he found on the jewelry box in their bedroom, and Weiss said that was correct.

4:25 p.m.:  Defense attorney Mike Klinkosum pushed some other points in his questioning of Sgt. Richard Spivey.

Klinkosum made an interesting point about Young's finances. He said Jason Young, because of heavy expenses, had been declared indigent. He said one defense attorney, Bryan Collins, is a public defender, and that the court had appointed Klinkosum to help defend him.

He also brought up how much it costs to defend a murder trial, and pointed out that Jason initially had well-known Raleigh attorney Roger Smith Jr. representing him.

"Are you aware how much he had to pay to retain Mr. Smith?" Klinkosum asked.

He also continued the defense strategy of saying the case is not solved by saying investigators had focused on Young.

"A large part of your investigation was focusing on Mr. Young, correct?" he said.

3:30 p.m.: Defense attorney went on the offensive with Sgt. Richard Spivey, one of the co-leads on the case, now on the stand.

Spivey, earlier in the day, had gone through Jason Young's testimony from the first trial and raised questions and discussed discrepancies.

Klinkosum took his turn taking a shot at the state's case.

He pointed out to Spivey that cell records show Jason was on his cell phone at 11:11 p.m. but that, according to hotel video, the camera in the west stairwell was found black at 11:20.

So according to the state's case, that means Jason only had nine minutes to do that.

Klinkosum also pointed out there was no video of Jason Young in the hallways or stairwells at that time of night, although Spivey said the camera "doesn't face down the halls."

Klinkosum showed a picture of Jason at the counter of the Hampton Inn and said, "He's standing in plain view of that camera," the suggestion being that wouldn't be the action of a man who was trying to conceal his actions.

He noted that night desk clerk Keith Hicks kicked the rock out from the west door about 5:30 p.m. but, if the state's case is correct, why aren't there pictures of Jason Young going up the elevator or in the hallway around that time?

12:51 p.m.: The prosecution used Jason Young’s testimony against him Wednesday, first playing a recording of Young defending himself in the first trial and then handing the jury a transcript of that testimony.

Sgt. Richard Spivey of the Wake County Sheriff’s Office, under questioning from prosecutor Howard Cummings, then addressed some of the issues in the transcript.

Spivey reviewed photos of Jason at the front desk, where he is not heavily clothed. He testified that the investigation into Jason’s clothing found no heavy coat, for example.

A jacket, he said, “was the only outerwear I was aware of.”

Spivey read a weather report that put the “dry bulb” temperature that night at 34 degrees at 11:40 p.m.

“The windspeed was 21 miles per hour,” Spivey testified. “There had been gusts up to 30 miles per hour.”

Spivey also read testimony from Young that he ate a continental breakfast at the hotel. But Spivey said he could find no images of Young at the reception area of the hotel in the morning. He did testify that the actual breakfast area was harder to see in the cameras and he could not make out details of the people there.

Cummings also asked Spivey to read a comment from Young at the first trial.

"I've lost family, friends, jobs. I've lost everything," Young stated.

Cummings pointed out there was no mention in that comment of losing his wife.

12:19 p.m.: Important testimony now. Prosecutor Howard Cummings gave the jury a copy of Jason Young's testimony and is having agent Richard Spivey go through it.

More updates coming.

10:41 a.m.: Becky Holt's follow-up with Jason Young had some tough questioning, about whether he truly loved his wife while he was having affairs with other women, as the second jury heard Wednesday morning.

The prosecution is re-playing Jason's testimony from the first trial. 

But while that was emotional, some other parts of Jason's initial testimony may prove more significant on the re-trial.

For example, she asked about his opposition to smoking, which was well-known, and yet he claims he smoked a cigar the night Michelle was murdered.

"Yes ma’am, absolutely," he said when asked about being opposed to smoking. "Cigarette smoking I think is very bad."

He denied that he had ever punched a hole in his apartment after a fight with Genevieve Cargol, as she had testified.

He denied that he went to Charlotte and spent the night with a woman, and denied that he and Michelle had clashed about it.

Holt, on the video, asked about how he said he would not speak to police. Asked why, he said, "The decision was not to talk to the police until I had an attorney. That was the only decision that was decided."

Holt pressed him on why he didn't talk to Michelle's family, and he said, "Of course I talked to them when I walked into the house."

He said he spoke with the attorney on Monday or Tuesday.

“I told my attorney a lot. And my attorney said I don’t think you should talk to law enforcement,” he said.

She pushed him as to why he never explained himself before going before the first jury. And she got him to confirm that he never called police to see how the investigation was going.

9:52 a.m.: The prosecution continued with its strategy of showing the jury testimony from the first trial on Wednesday as the second jury saw Jason Young recall how he learned about the death of Michelle Young.

Jason testified that he had returned to his mother’s home in Brevard, and Pat Young and her husband Gerald came to see him outside the house.

“They were kind of holding each other and walking toward the car,” he said. “You can tell when your mom is upset.”

His father told him Michelle was dead, he testified.

“I just … I just fell. I broke on the inside. I didn’t believe it. It just didn’t feel real. It didn’t feel like it was happening. I didn’t understand it,” he said, with tears welling up and dropping his head.

Jason said he was told by friends that the police were asking about him, and that an investigator had been "ugly" to his mother, demanding that Jason return to Raleigh.

“I didn’t understand that," he testified.

He said his friends told him investigators were asking them hard questions about him.

“They said they were asking really ugly questions and pointing their finger at me,” he

testified. “They told you need to get a layer – ‘You don’t need to talk to anybody, you need to get a lawyer before you talk to anybody.”

Jason testified that he did that and met with a lawyer the next Monday or Tuesday.

“The lawyer that I got, he advised me to not go talk to the police,” Jason said.

Did the lawyer tell you not to talk to anybody?

"That’s exactly what he said – don’t talk to anybody about anything," he said. "That meant my mom, my sister, my family, my friends. I took his advice.”

He confirmed that he had bought a pair of Hush Puppy shoes but they didn't hold up and he thought Michelle had gotten rid of them. He also said he had not bought athletic shoes - the Franklin brand that has been brought up - at a Family Dollar store.

Jason was highly involved in sports, playing basketball with his friends, and said, "Actually, that's where I would not be cheap."

Jason, again, closed the questions from defense attorney Bryan Collins by insisting he did not kill his wife.

He said he did not know why someone would want to kill her, did not go to the house to strangle her, did not hit her on the head.

Asked directly if he had anything to do with killing her,  he said, "No sir."