Prosecutor: Suspect ‘graduated’ from rapist to murderer
RENO -- Prosecutors said Wednesday that a man with a fetish for women's thong underwear escalated from rapist to killer, with the sexual assaults of two women in 2007 near the University of Nevada, Reno and the death of a college coed in 2008.
In his opening statement to a seven-man, five-woman jury, Deputy District Attorney Chris Hicks said that James Biela "graduated from serial rapist to murderer" and that after DNA and other forensic evidence is presented, jurors will reach the inescapable conclusion of his guilt.
But Public Defender Jay Slocum urged jurors not to view the evidence with sympathy or anger, but the "cold light of reason." He said that DNA evidence was not conclusive and that while authorities say they have linked the three crimes to a single assailant, each has "very distinct facts" that shed doubt on the prosecution's theory.
Biela, a Sparks pipe fitter who trained in martial arts, is charged with three counts of sexual assault and one count each of kidnapping and murder. Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty if he is convicted.
Brianna Denison, a 19-year-old who grew up in Reno, was visiting family and friends during the winter break when she disappeared while sleeping on a couch at a house near UNR in January 2008. She was a sophomore at Santa Barbara City College in California.
Her mostly nude body, covered by a discarded Christmas tree, was found three weeks later in a snowy vacant lot in a business district in south Reno.
Tucked beneath one of her legs was two pairs of women's thong underwear. One belonged to the friend Denison was staying with the night she disappeared, and forensic experts think it was used to strangle her, Hicks said.
Biela, 28, also is accused of raping a woman in a UNR parking garage at gunpoint in October 2007. Another woman was kidnapped two months later from outside her apartment near UNR and driven to a parking lot, where she was assaulted before her attacker drove her home and told her not to call police, authorities said.
