CARIBOU, Maine — Attorneys representing accused murderer Jesse Marquis rested their case on Thursday without calling any witnesses in his defense.
When asked by Judge Allen Hunter if he wished to testify on his own behalf, Marquis also declined, quietly responding, “No, your honor.”
The case against the St. Francis man, who is accused of fatally stabbing and shooting his former girlfriend Amy Theriault, a 31-year-old mother of two, in her St. Francis home on May 31, 2014, will be presented to the jury on Friday after the defense and state attorneys make their closing arguments.
Witnesses testified on Wednesday that they saw Marquis, who was 38 at the time, enter Theriault’s bedroom carrying a knife on the morning she was slain.
Jamie and Joshua Pelletier, who were staying overnight at Theriault’s home, described for jurors how they found Theriault lying on her bedroom floor in a pool of blood after Marquis came out and left the home carrying a rifle.
A six-day manhunt for Marquis ensued before law enforcement officials, with the assistance of a bloodhound, found and arrested Marquis in the St. Francis woods about a mile from Theriault’s home. He was indicted on the murder charge in July 2014 and has been held at the county jail since his arrest.
On Thursday, Sgt. Randall Keaten of the Maine State Police told the jury that at one point more than 100 troopers were involved in the search for Marquis. Keaten said he provided direct cover for two dog handlers on the morning Marquis was captured.
Marquis surrendered without incident, according to Keaten, who also secured evidence from the arrest scene, including a rifle and Marquis’ Emerson size 12 work boots.
Later on Thursday, a forensic specialist for the Maine State Police, Robert Burns, told jurors that while he could not conclusively match the bullet that killed Theriault to the rifle, tests on a cartridge found at the murder scene and the inner barrel of the gun did prove a positive match.
“It was fired from the firearm,” he said.
Burns also testified that the boots Marquis was wearing at the time of his capture matched footprint patterns at Theriault’s home.
Analyst Christine Waterhouse told the jury Thursday that she compared samples of DNA from blood on a folding knife with a 3-inch blade and on the inside of a gun case, both of which were found where Theriault was killed, to DNA samples collected from Marquis, Theriault and the two witnesses. She said that some of the blood found on the grip and the blade lock of the knife matched Marquis’ DNA sample.
The odds of the DNA found in the blood on the knife belonging to someone other than Marquis were less than one in 300 billion, she said.
“We consider that to be an identity match,” Waterhouse said.
The bloodstains on the gun case matched Theriault’s DNA, she said.
On cross examination, Waterhouse admitted to defense attorney Stephen Smith that she had no way of knowing how the blood got on the knife or the gun case.
Burns later told jurors that a 2-millimeter portion of metal embedded in Theriault’s body “was at one time joined together with” the blade of the knife police collected at the crime scene.
Marquis remained unemotional throughout the Thursday’s testimony.
He faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted.