Murder Trial Gets Underway 12 Years After Incident

June 8, 2009

A murder trial began today as jury members were selected for the case in Boulder, Colorado. Nearly a dozen years ago, 23-year-old Susannah Chase was raped and beaten to death with a baseball bat when she was walking from the mall to her home at the University of Colorado.

The young woman was dumped in an alley near her home, and she died the next day from blunt force trauma. At the time, police were not able to name any suspects. However, in 2008, a man named Diego Olmos Alcade was arrested after his DNA, which was submitted to a nationwide criminal database matched genetic material that was found inside the girl’s body.

The lawyers are currently meeting behind closed doors with each of the prospective jurors. The pool includes 258 people and the jurors are being interviewed at a rate of 10 per hour. The trial is expected to last four weeks.