Darrell Brooks is expected to formally begin his defense Thursday in the Waukesha parade deaths trial. The Milwaukee man is charged with six counts of intentional homicide and faces seventy other charges, after allegedly using his SUV to plow through parade goers last November. He's plead not guilty.
Brooks continues to represent himself in court. He says he'll make the opening statement he declined to make at the beginning of the trial more than two weeks ago. He says he also plans to call twelve witnesses over the next two days.
Waukesha County prosecutors are nearly done presenting their case against Brooks. Wednesday afternoon, there were several hours of testimony from State Crime Lab experts who collected and analyzed DNA evidence from the 2010 Ford Escape Brooks allegedly abandoned in a Waukesha neighborhood after police say he left the parade route.
Chris Johnson is with the Crime Lab in Milwaukee. He described using two swabs to collect DNA from the steering wheel of the SUV.
"The first swab is a swab that's slightly moistened with deionized water, and basically swabbing the surface, and following up that swab with a dry swab. And that becomes one item of evidence," Johnson said.
Johnson says he also collected DNA from the vehicle's gear shift and some clothing items found in or near the SUV. After some time in storage, the evidence was sent to the State Crime Lab in Madison for DNA analysis, which looks at a person's genetic blueprint. There, senior forensic scientist Trevor Naleid tested the items and wrote a report over about a three-month period.
Naleid testified that he compared the DNA from the vehicle with cheek swabs taken from Brooks and his former girlfriend Erika Patterson, with whom Brooks had an argument just before the parade incident.
Waukesha County District Attorney Sue Opper asked Naleid what he found by analyzing the steering wheel DNA.
"What conclusion did you draw?" she said.
Naleid replied: "Based on it being a two person mixture, Erica Patterson and Darrell Brooks are both very strong support for inclusion."
Waukesha police say Patterson was not in the vehicle when Brooks drove it through the parade route.
During cross-examination, Brooks asked Naleid about evidence showing a DNA mixture of three people on the SUV's gear shift.
Brooks asked: "There's still DNA that you found that's unknown?"
Naleid replied: "That's correct."
But later on the witness stand, Naleid told prosecutors that an analysis of DNA on a sweatshirt found in Waukesha after the parade incident only came from Brooks.
Earlier Wednesday, Brooks, the prosecution, Judge Jennifer Dorow and the jury walked to a garage in the courthouse complex to view the SUV. The Waukesha County Sheriffs Department provided the news media with a video of the vehicle taken without court parties in the garage.
