Prosecutors rest their case

What happened Monday?

•Prosecutors rested their case after presenting DNA evidence and showing jurors a 20-minute videotape in which Benjamin Appleby confessed to killing 19-year-old Ali Kemp of Leawood.

•Forensic chemist Dana Soderholm, formerly with the Johnson County Crime Lab, testified that Appleby’s DNA was found on Kemp’s T-shirt and jogging bra and also on an ointment tube and cap left near Kemp’s body at the swimming pool where the murder occurred. The likelihood that the DNA on the tube could match someone other than Appleby is 1 in 14.4 billion, Soderholm said.

•DNA tests also were conducted at the Kansas City Regional Crime Lab. Forensic analyst Lisa Dowler, who supervises the DNA section at that lab, testified there was a 1 in 2 quadrillion chance that DNA on the jogging bra matched someone other than Appleby.

•In the videotaped confession, Appleby told Leawood detectives on Nov. 8, 2004, that he “lost it” when Kemp rebuffed his sexual advances.

“I killed her,” he said. “I strangled her, I guess. I don’t know what I used. There was something laying there.”

What happens today?

•The defense begins its case. It is expected to call a pathologist who will testify about the death.

•Closing arguments probably will be heard in the afternoon. The case then will go to the jury.

What’s the case about?

•Appleby, 31, is charged with capital murder and attempted rape in the killing of Kemp on June 18, 2002, at a Leawood swimming pool.

•Defense attorney Angela Keck surprised many in the courtroom last week when she acknowledged in her opening statement that Appleby killed Kemp. Keck maintains, however, that Appleby did not kill Kemp intentionally and that he should be found guilty of a lesser crime than capital murder.