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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

New evidence tracks Daniel Messel during the time of Hannah Wilson's murder

Daniel Messel is led out of the Brown County Courthouse and to a waiting car in Nashville, IN on Friday.

On Monday in court, jurors got a better idea of where Daniel Messel might have been the night IU student Hannah Wilson went missing last April.

Jeremy Clinton was the first on the stand. He is a U.S. Marshall who conducts investigations on cell phone mapping.

“Pings” from cell phone towers helped investigators track Messel the night of April 23 and morning of April 24, by knowing the location of his mobile phone.

Last week, on the first day of the trial, jurors learned Messel’s phone was found by Wilson’s body just hours after she was murdered.

Detective Tom Egler, who collected surveillance video footage from several locations across Bloomington, testified Monday afternoon.

Footage from the Showers Inn on 8th Street, the Speedway gas station and McDonald’s on North Walnut Street was shown to the jury.

A Kia SUV that matched the characteristics and profile of Messel’s 2012 Kia Sportage appeared in all videos.

On cross-examination, Egler said he hadn’t compared different models of Kias to Messel’s to ensure the vehicle in the footage was his.

Because of the lack of clarity in some of the video, defense attorney Dorie Maryan asked if the SUV in the video could’ve been white or beige, rather than silver, which is the color of Messel’s. Egler said yes, that was possible.

To see where Messel was April 23-24, 2015, based on the investigation into Wilson’s murder, see the timeline below.

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