Page 12 - Daniel Clay News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Around from house to house, girlfriend to girlfriend, has a few kids. >> not doing well in life. >> unemployed. >> oh, boy. >> we found he'd actually been arrested a month or two prior, i believe it was may 2016 by the rural city police for a lrsany for person where he stole a backpack with some tattoo equipment off of somebody. >> a petty crime essentially. >> but it's a felony. >> and unfortunately for daniel clay the law in michigan had recently changed. under the old law only dna from convicted felons was entered into the nationalida database. the new law included anyone arrested for felon...

Prosecutor rory insisted. and he implored the jury, just look at the evidence. >> the defendant murdered chelsea bruck, and then he discarded her lifeless naked body in those woods in an attempt to hide the evidence of his wrongdoing and escaping a measure of justice for what he had just done. >> not enough, argued defense attorney smith. oh, they should find daniel guilty, he said, but of manslaughter, not murder. daniel clay had no reason to kill chelsea and no motive to do so. >> he caused her death, that's not a secret. is it a murder? what was his intent? was his intent a killer, premedit...

Evidence said the prosecutor from daniel clay's lies to the dna to broken facial bones, the blood inside the costume added up to first degree murder. but daniel's defense attorney russell smith countered, uh-uh, his client killed chelsea, yes, but this was no murder. >> the tragedy of this young lady is no longer with us. but the facts these two people got together and one of these people passed away is not proof of murder. >> he argued it was just a horrible accident caused by choking during consensual sex, and he put on his own forensic pathologist to argue that as well. >> some type of neck...

Daniel clay went on trial for murder in may 2017. and as chelsea's family and friends gathered here at the monroe county courthouse the prosecutors prepared it deal with a tricky problem. daniel clay had confessed to an accidental killing. they needed to prove it was really murder. >> because there's only one person alive who knows what really happened that night and that's daniel clay, and he's certainly no friend to the truth. >> although lead prosecutor rory admitted some of daniel's story was plausible. >> i think that the fact that she was alone at the party without a phone, without a rid...

Stopped by these railroad tracks and carried her body to this wooded property and tried to hide her with leaves and branches. he claimed he simply had no idea how her costume ended up in that abandoned building 5 1/2 miles away. >> i don't believe we ever got the full, true story of what daniel clay did to chelsea. >> something made him snap. we don't know did chelsea simply ask for a ride home and realize he was going the wrong direction and confront him on that, try to get out of the vehicle? did she turn down his advances for sex? we don't know. something set him off, though, and made him s...