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Ingersoll Trial: Day Two

By JOLEEN FERRIS

Story Created: Nov 7, 2012 at 2:38 PM EDT

Story Updated: Nov 7, 2012 at 9:01 PM EDT

UTICA, N.Y. (WKTV) - Nearly six years after people sledding found her daughter's body behind the Deerfield Firehouse, Denise Saunders finally faced her daughter's accused killer in a courtroom.

Craig Ingersoll was not one of the original 100 or so suspects police interviewed or whose DNA they tested.  But following an arrest for fraud and grand larceny three years after Jennifer Bennett's murder, a DNA match, or, 'hit'.

Several witnesses took the stand in day one of testimony of Craig Ingersoll's murder trial. Among them, a forensic investigator with the Oneida County Sheriff's Department who processed the crime scene and evidence found on the 29-year-old's body. Sgt. Peter Healt said the condition of Bennett's body, especially mud and lateral lacerations.
  
"You can see mud being swiped through here. It appears that she's been dragged across the mud. There's some scrapes, some injuries, and some lines," said Healt.

The forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy on Bennett said fractured bones in her neck indicate she was strangled to death. And that the injuries would require moderate squeezing for a sustained period of time-as many as four minutes.
 
"A person would realize that they were inflicting some damage and would expect to cause some injury with moderate force," said Dr. Michael Sikiricka.

Bennett's mother testified through tears that her daughter was a loving, compassionate mother to her four children and that the 29-year-old struggled with drug addiction.

Testimony resumes Thursday at 9:15 a.m.

 
 

 

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