[Watch coverage of the trial on the Law&Crime Network with live in-studio analysis in the player above. For a raw feed of the trial, watch in the player below this article.]
The murder trial of George Burch continues Tuesday in Wisconsin. Burch is accused of killing Nicole VanderHeyden, who disappeared on May 21, 2016. Burch and VanderHeyden allegedly met that same evening. Burch is now facing a trial for first-degree intentional murder, but he insists that he didn’t do it. Watch live in the player above.
Police found Burch’s DNA on VanderHeyden’s body, and he has admitted that he was with her on the nightshe died. He claimed he was having sex with her in a car, when VanderHeyden’s boyfriend, Douglass Detrie, found them. Burch said that Detrie then killed the woman, and threatened Burch at gunpoint, making him move the body to the spot where investigators later found her. He also claimed that Detrie knocked him out.
On Monday, Jordan Schuyler, Burch’s girlfriend from the time of VanderHeyden’s death, took the stand. She said that Burch told her he was going on a fishing trip the day after the killing. She said when he came back, he didn’t show any signs of a head injury, which goes against the theory that Detrie knocked him out.
The prosecution is expected to rest their case on Tuesday, after presenting evidence showing that Burch was at VanderHeyden’s home the night she died, as well as evidence from Detrie’s FitBit that they claim proves that he was not active enough that night to have carried out the crime. The defense has long protested against the reliability of the FitBit data.
Once the prosecution wraps up, Burch’s defense will have the opportunity to call witnesses and present their case.
Stay with Law&Crime.com and the Law&Crime Network for continuing coverage of the trial.
[Image via Brown County Jail]
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