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Friends of suspect, victim testify

Jenny Lancour | Daily Press During a break in the murder trial of Gregory S. Ihander in Menominee County Circuit Court on Monday, Prosecutor William Merkel, pictured at right, converses with Defense Attorney Karen Groenhout and her assistant, Attorney Alex Sieminski.

MENOMINEE — Family and friends of murder suspect Gregory S. Ihander and victim Jolene Eichhorn took the stand Monday providing the Menominee County jury with testimony about the men in Eichhorn’s life prior to her death in 2015.

Richard Hood, Eichhorn’s ex-boyfriend of 14 years, testified about how his relationship with Eichhorn was “rocky” during the summer of 2015 and they split up around the first week of July. He said he moved out of her place, but they kept in contact and were working on their relationship before her death.

Eichhorn’s body was discovered in the trunk of her car found abandoned at the Cedar River Harbor Marina on Sept. 9, 2015. Ihander, now 49, of Menominee Township, was arrested and charged with open murder after police found bloody items in his home later that day. Eichhorn, 43, of Carney, bled to death from a stab wound that severed her carotid artery.

DNA analysis revealed Eichhorn’s blood on Ihander’s clothing the day he was arrested, her blood in his kitchen, and her blood on the suspect murder weapon — a hunting knife found under the defendant’s trailer five weeks later.

Testing also revealed semen DNA — not Ihander’s — that was removed from Eichhorn during her autopsy, according to expert testimony presented last week in Menominee County Circuit Court.

During questioning Monday morning, Hood said he had intercourse with Eichhorn when they spent a night together on Labor Day weekend in 2015. Hood, who worked as a truck driver, later dropped off their dog at her place then left for Texas on Monday, Sept. 7, 2015.

Hood’s last contact with Eichhorn was when she sent him a text the next day, Sept. 8. He returned a text to her that evening but never heard from her. Eichhorn’s body was found in her car trunk the following morning.

Hood testified Monday that he and Eichhorn were working on their relationship during the five weeks after he had moved out, occasionally spending nights together at his place or hers.

“We were working on it,” he said Monday. “I just kept trying to keep contact with her, kept trying to get back together.”

When asked by Prosecutor William Merkel if he knew Ihander, Hood said he heard about him after he had moved out of Eichhorn’s place.

During the trial Monday afternoon, Eichhorn’s ex-husband, Dale Shepherd, took the stand, testifying he and Eichhorn had “a really good relationship” after they had divorced following two and a half years of marriage. They were married in 1991.

“We all got along,” Shepherd said, explaining how he had recently helped her find a used car and was helping her with some paperwork regarding her driver’s license. She had planned to stop at his house for the paperwork on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2015, but she never showed up, he said.

When Merkel asked Shepherd about Ihander, he said he had heard about his ex-wife dating him.

One of Eichhorn’s nephews testified Monday that he had chased Ihander’s car out of Eichhorn’s sister’s driveway on Aug. 28, 2015. When the nephew caught up with Ihander, he said he was looking for Eichhorn because she hadn’t returned his phone calls.

Another nephew testified Monday that he was staying with his “Auntie” for a couple weeks while he helped her replace flooring in her home. The nephew said, while staying with Eichhorn in early September 2015, he noticed she had locked her doors and windows. He said this was not like his aunt because she never locked up her house before.

Nora Williams, Eichhorn’s friend and co-worker, also testified Monday. Eichhorn was a probation officer for the Hannahville Indian Community at the time of her death. WIlliams said Eichhorn had received an engagement ring from Ihander on his birthday on Aug. 12, 2015.

On Aug. 23, 2015, the two friends were at Williams’ home when Eichhorn received a call from Ihander and put the conversation on speaker phone, Williams testified, explaining in court that Ihander was begging Eichhorn to come back.

The last contact Williams had with Eichhorn was on Sept. 8, 2015 when they spoke on the phone around 4 or 4:30 that afternoon, she said.

Williams described Eichhorn as an amazing person and a good friend who was loving, caring, and very responsible and always willing to help people.

Also among Monday’s witnesses was Patrick Joslyn, who knew Ihander from school. He also knew Eichhorn, who was his neighbor.

Joslyn said he saw Ihander and Eichhorn together at a store in Stephenson in August 2015 and Ihander told him the two of them had been seeing each other for about a year.

After the two men later met by chance in a bar, Ihander contacted Joslyn and asked him where Eichhorn lived and also said he would stop by Joslyn’s the next day.

Ihander did stop by as they had discussed, testified Joslyn, recalling Ihander told him that when he went to Eichhorn’s residence, he saw her old boyfriend there.

“He (Ihander) was upset about it because he had asked her to marry him and hadn’t heard from her in about a week,” testified Joslyn. “He was upset. He was crying… because she was messing around on him.”

That was the last time Joslyn saw Ihander, he said, explaining he saw on Facebook about Eichhorn being reported missing on Sept. 9, 2015, and went over to Ihander’s house where police cars were in his yard. An officer talked to Joslyn and asked him to leave the property, he said. Joslyn said a detective questioned him about Ihander a couple days later.

Additional witnesses who testified Monday placed Ihander in a local bar during the late afternoon on Sept. 9, 2015. A man who was playing cards with Ihander testified Ihander kept looking out the bar window “an awful lot” towards his home.

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Jenny Lancour, (906) 786-2021, ext. 143, jlancour@dailypress.net

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