Prosecutor claims DNA links suspect to 1983 rape-slaying

With tears in her eyes, Sue Burns recalled the last time she heard her sister get ready for her morning classes at Eastern Michigan University, on May 23, 1983.

But Laura Jean McBride, 26, failed to return to the apartment the sisters shared on Green Road that afternoon. Burns reported her missing the next morning, and by afternoon, she learned McBride had been stabbed to death.

Twenty-four years later, thanks to DNA evidence, a suspect was ordered to stand trial in McBride's death at the conclusion of a preliminary hearing Tuesday. Jimmy Eric Green, 49, is accused of raping and repeatedly stabbing McBride that morning in Peninsular Park, near the Huron River.

Prosecutors presented evidence that Green's DNA matched the DNA collected in a rape kit after McBride's death. But no other evidence was outlined in court tying Green to the slaying of McBride, a U.S. Air Force veteran.

Burns was one of five witnesses to testify before 14-A District Judge Kirk Tabbey during the hearing.

McBride's body was found by fishermen in Peninsular Park, with 23 stab wounds and signs of sexual assault.

"The police came that afternoon and said they found a body, and they were 95 percent sure it was my sister,'' said Burns, who was 19 at the time.

Green faces charges of open murder, first-degree murder and first-degree criminal sexual conduct. He is already serving a life sentence for first-degree criminal sexual conduct in an unrelated case.

Ypsilanti Police Officer Robert Peto, who was assigned the case in 2001, said Green was never a suspect in the original investigation into McBride's death. When lab tests on seminal fluid matched Green's sample in a national database in 2003, police began building their case against him, Peto said.

Heather Vitta, a state police crime laboratory forensic scientist, said the profile from the samples unmistakably matched Green.

Green's court-appointed defense attorney, Gina Jacobs, argued that prosecutors had limited evidence to tie Green to the murder. She said the DNA evidence may have been the result of consensual sex. Burns earlier testified her sister was not in a relationship at the time of her death.

"So far we've heard no proof he killed her or even that he was in Ypsilanti (at the time),'' Jacobs said.

But Tabbey said there was sufficient evidence for Green to stand trial and set a pretrial hearing for Aug. 28.