YOUNG TRIAL: Victims’ DNA found on shoes

The jury faced with deciding the fate of 28-year-old Casey Young, a New Albany man accused of stabbing to death his grandmother and her long-time companion, heard testimony from a forensic expert Tuesday that both victims’ DNA were found on the shoes Young was wearing when arrested.

First to the witness stand during the second full day of the trial was Sgt. Ken Fudge with the New Albany Police Department, who testified to finding three significant blood pools inside the apartment at which Nancy Young and Will Stone’s decomposing bodies were found stuffed underneath a bed.

Fudge played a video for the jury which walked them through the small Plaza Drive apartment and showed them a blood-stained couch along with two sections of carpet completely saturated with blood. He also showed the jury at least three different traces of blood found on the wall in the apartment’s hallway.

The video confirmed testimony given Monday by two investigators with the New Albany Police Department that the apartment was found in “a complete disarray.” Clothes were piled up in several areas of the apartment, including over several areas police later found to be blood-stained, and all decorative items and pictures appeared to have been removed from the walls and shelves and placed atop tables.

Detectives also testified Monday to finding powdered dishwashing detergent sprinkled throughout the house. An empty Cascade box was depicted in the video.

Fudge told the jury he took several samples from the apartment to send to analysts with the Indiana State Police, including one piece of carpet from the hallway that was saturated with blood, another piece of carpet from one of the bedrooms that appeared to depict a bloody shoe print and pieces of fabric from a bloodstained couch. Fudge also said the Reebok tennis shoes Casey Young was wearing at the time of his arrest were sent to experts along with the samples because the soles appeared to be saturated with blood.

Also sent to the Indiana State Police Crime Lab was the meat fork police believed to be the murder weapon. Susan Laine, a forensic DNA analyst with the Indiana State Police Lab, testified Tuesday that Nancy Young’s DNA was found on that meat fork.

Laine also said both Nancy Young and Stone’s DNA were found on Casey Young’s left tennis shoe while a mixture of both were found on the right shoe. Laine testified that neither Stone’s DNA nor Casey Young’s DNA “could be excluded” from being a match to a sample taken from a piece of couch cushion.

Investigators testified Monday that Casey Young had a serious cut on his thumb when arrested.

While being questioned by Casey Young’s attorney, Andrew Adams, Laine said she also tested a pair of blood-stained denim shorts. The DNA on those shorts was that of Casey Young, she said.

Sgt. Dean Marks, an expert in blood-stain patterns, also with the Indiana State Police, was the last to the witness stand and told the jury he examined more than 180 blood stains less than a millimeter in size on Casey Young’s left tennis shoe and more than 135 similar stains on the right shoe.

He testified that the blood stains were consistent with expirated blood spatter — or blood that exits from a person’s mouth, nose or from a punctured trachea or chest. He said whether or not Casey Young was wearing the shoes at the time, they had to have been within feet of Nancy Young and Stone at the time of their deaths.

Before stepping down, Marks testified that the blood stains could not have resulted from “walking or stomping” through a pool of blood, as those types of stains would be much larger.

Also testifying Tuesday was Barbara Wheatley Jones, a medical examiner with the Kentucky Medical Examiner’s Office in Louisville. She testified that Stone and Nancy Young’s stab wounds were consistent with the meat fork found at the scene. She said Nancy Young had multiple stab wounds to her neck, face and head along with a “defensive wound” on one of her hands. Stone also had multiple wounds to his face and neck but also had many to his abdomen and genital area.

Police believe Casey Young killed Nancy Young and Stone on Oct. 5, 2004, and remained in the home with the bodies for four days. He told police he had come home to discover the gruesome crime scene on Oct. 6, but didn’t call police because it “wasn’t his problem.”

If convicted on both counts, Casey Young faces a maximum of 130 years in prison.