Prosecutor: Shotgun blast killed Behrman

MARTINSVILLE -- IU student Jill Behrman was killed by a 12-gauge shotgun blast to the back of the head, Morgan County Prosecutor Steve Sonnega told a jury on the first day of the high-profile murder trial Monday.\nSeveral media outlets, including Fox News, had reported that as the cause of death since Behrman's remains were recovered in March 2003, but this was the first time an official close to the case revealed the information publicly.\nBehrman, who was a 19-year-old IU sophomore at the time of her disappearance, went missing May 31, 2000, during a morning bike ride. Her bike was found two days later in a cornfield outside Ellettsville.\nEllettsville resident John R. Myers II, 30, is on trial for the murder. He has pleaded not guilty after being indicted by a Morgan County grand jury in April.\nProsecutors opened the trial by calling Tim Gentry, an Indianapolis Power & Light employee to the witness stand. Gentry and his son found Behrman's remains in a remote wooded area near Paragon, Ind., while hunting turkey in March 2003.\nGentry said the first thing he noticed was a jaw bone that appeared to be human, which lead him to retreat from the area and call the police.\nThe second and final witness for the day was Morgan County Coroner Dan Downing, who repeated Sonnega's claim that Behrman was killed by a gunshot wound to the back of the head and said Behrman's remains had to be identified through dental records.\nIn his opening arguments, Sonnega showed jurors a slide show of the events leading up to Myers' indictment, portraying the accused as upset over a recent breakup with his girlfriend at the time of Behrman's disappearance.\nSonnega told the court Myers made cryptic comments to his family members and co-workers about Behrman's death, worried that he would be blamed because her bike was discovered less than a mile from his house.\n"The evidence will show, ladies and gentleman, that May 31, 2000, John Myers, the defendant, showed up at his parents' house crying, in hysterics, ready to leave town," Sonnega said. "We will show evidence that he was paranoid."\nMyers, wearing a light blue dress shirt, black slacks and no tie, kept his eyes on the slide show during Sonnega's opening arguments, never looking at the prosecutor but occasionally conferring with lawyers.\nIn his opening remarks, defense attorney Patrick Baker said that phone records would prove Myers could not have killed Behrman.\n"This is an attempt to solve an unsolved crime with a grand finale," Baker said, motioning toward Myers. "That's not your grand finale. The state didn't talk about what they have to prove. They have to prove Johnny Myers knowingly killed Jill Behrman."\nBaker said there is no evidence or witness to tie Myers to the crime scene, and there are many other plausible theories for who killed Behrman.\nThe defense also said that a co-worker of Behrman's at the Student Recreational Sports Center at IU who was known to skeet shoot with a 12-gauge shotgun could have been responsible for her death.\nEarlier in the morning, Judge Christopher Burnham ruled in favor of a defense motion to preclude several of the prosecution's suppositions about Myers' state of mind and previous alleged criminal acts. \nIn arguing against the defense motions, Sonnega said he intends to show the jury that Myers led police on a game of cat and mouse before Behrman's body was discovered. Myers, Sonnega said, fed investigators small bits of information, including a map that Sonnega said would have led police on a path from Myers' Monroe County home to the place where Behrman's remains were later found in Morgan County.\nBurnham also denied a defense request to preclude the testimony of Myers' grandmother. Sonnega said she told police that Myers said: "If the authorities knew what I have done, I would go to prison for the rest of my life." \nMyers' trial is expected to last three to four weeks.\n-- Indiana Daily Student Editor in Chief Michael Zennie contributed to this report.