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Jury begins deliberation in murder trial

Ilsa Matthes | Daily Press Det. Sgt. Jean Belanger of the Michigan State Police responds to questions from Defense Attorney Karen Groenhout about the arrest of Gregory Ihander, who is accused of murdering Jolene Eichhorn.

Ilsa Matthes | Daily Press Det. Sgt. Jean Belanger of the Michigan State Police responds to questions from Defense Attorney Karen Groenhout about the arrest of Gregory Ihander, who is accused of murdering Jolene Eichhorn. Ilsa Matthes | Daily Press  At the request of a juror, Menominee County Prosecuting Attorney William Merkel shows the jury the plastic bag that the hunting knife believed to be used in the murder of Jolene Eichhorn was found in under Gregory Ihander's trailer six weeks after his arrest.

Ilsa Matthes | Daily Press Gregory Ihander, left, sits near his attorneys Karen Groenhout and Alex Sieminski. Ihander is accused of murdering Jolene Eichhorn, with whom he had a relationship that ended shortly before Eichhorn's death. Jury deliberation will continue today.MENOMINEE — After hearing testimony and closing statements, jurors in a two-week Menominee County murder trial began deliberating Wednesday afternoon to decide if Gregory Scott Ihander was guilty of murdering 43-year-old Jolene Eichhorn in 2015.

Court proceedings Wednesday started with the cross examination of Det. Sgt. Jean Belanger of the Michigan State Police, who was the arresting officer when Ihander was taken into custody at his home on Sept. 9, 2015, following the discovery of Eichhorn’s body in the trunk of her car at the Cedar River Harbor Marina.

While the jurors were briefly excused from the courtroom, Defense Attorney Karen Groenhout argued that differing accounts by Belanger indicated that Ihander’s arrest may have been made illegally, without probable cause. If so, the case would have to be dismissed by the court.

Groenhout’s argument hinged on prior days’ testimony by Belanger that differed on the order of events immediately prior to Ihander’s arrest. In some testimony, Belanger stated that she was outside Ihander’s home, speaking to Ihander, when Menominee County Sheriff’s Det. Jeff Brunelle found a garbage bag of bloody items in Ihander’s bathtub and that the arrest happened after Brunelle came outside and motioned for Belanger to cuff Ihander. Other testimony indicated that Belanger had witnessed the bag of bloody items herself prior to Ihander’s arrest.

“The portion of the testimony that was honed in on as to the change in the officer’s testimony was that the first two times she testified she went in and saw the bags before she arrested the defendant, yesterday she testified that she went in and — after she heard the (audio) — she went in and saw the bags after she arrested him,” said Menominee County Circuit Court Judge Mary Berglind, referencing a recording made undercover by police at the time of the arrest that was played in court Tuesday and Wednesday. “In either scenario the arrest was still legal.”

Belanger has also claimed that Ihander had told her prior to his arrest, “You’re going to find something in there and I want to tell you about it. I want to tell you everything.” At the start of testimony Wednesday, she claimed that it was Ihander’s own words that helped her make the decision to arrest him.

“I determined at that time that he had a guilty mind. He was aware. By telling me that he wanted to tell me everything, he was aware of what was inside his house,” Belanger told the court.

Only two other witnesses testified Wednesday morning before both the prosecution and the defense had rested their cases. The defense called Ihander’s sister-in-law, Dorothy Ihander, who testified that her mother-in-law had seen Ihander’s brother Kevin Ihander at Ihander’s home following the defendant’s arrest.

She also testified that after Kevin Ihander had been at Ihander’s residence, she had gone to the home with her husband to remove Ihander’s personal belongings from the mobile home at the request of the landlord. When she went to the home with her husband, she noticed that there was a hole in part of the skirting of the trailer. She claimed she knew that Ihander kept a spare key to the mobile home under the skirting, but she was unaware of where the key was located under the trailer and that she saw nothing else under the trailer when she examined the hole from a standing height.

Six weeks after Ihander’s arrest, a hunting knife that is believed to be the murder weapon was discovered under the mobile home. The knife was inside a white, plastic grocery bag attached to the trailer’s water pump.

The defense also called Jim McNeil, a private investigator based in Escanaba that was hired by the defense to interview witnesses and serve subpoenas. McNeil testified that he was unable to deliver a subpoena to Kevin Ihander and believed that Kevin Ihander was dodging his attempts to serve the document.

While Groenhout argued in her closing statements that Kevin Ihander was initially a suspect, Belanger testified Wednesday that Kevin Ihander was not a suspect in the case and that there was no evidence tying him to the crime scene at the marina or Ihander’s home.

Though given an opportunity to testify after the other witnesses, Ihander opted not to testify on his own behalf on Wednesday.

In closing statements, Prosecutor William Merkel gave the jury a detailed account of what he saw as the chain of events leading up to and immediately following the murder of Eichhorn based on witness testimony. He told the jury that if they were going to find Ihander not-guilty of murder, they would have to accept that “some other dude did it” a phrase he emphasized by introducing the acronym “SODDI.”

“Some other dude, if you are to believe the defense’s suggestion, would have to have killed Jolene Eichhorn within the defendant’s kitchen. That some other dude would then stick around — (someone) who has no contact with this residence — would then stick around and clean up that blood, and then take all the items used to clean up that blood evidence throw it in a garbage bag, and put it in the tub off the master bedroom,” said Merkel.

He also noted that Ihander’s son, Josh Ihander, and his son’s fiance LonnieJean Schmit, testified that Ihander was not wearing the hunting knife found under Ihander’s trailer when they were at Ihander’s home with him on Sept. 8, 2015. Based on that testimony, Merkel argued that Ihander would have needed to go get the knife before he could stab Eichhorn, indicating that the act was premeditated.

The defense, however, saw multiple issues with the way evidence was processed, witnesses were interviewed, and testimony was given.

“I submit to you that this is a case that has been closed. This is not a case that has been solved,” Groenhout told the jury.

Chief among Groenhout’s concerns were issues with testimony from Belanger. In addition to the changes in testimony that prompted the attorney to ask for the case to be dismissed early in the day, she questioned the validity of the the alleged statement by Ihander to Belanger saying that they would find items inside the home.

“The only time that my client has made any sort of incriminating statements happens to be when there’s nobody recording him,” said Groenhout.

Groenhout also took issue with the way that evidence and witnesses were processed during the investigation. For example, the handle of the hunting knife was not tested for DNA evidence, few of Ihander’s family members were questioned by police, and Ihander’s brother, Kevin Ihander, was not pursued as a lead in the case, despite questions about his involvement.

The defense also argued that it would have been physically impossible for Ihander to have walked the 21 miles from the harbor where Eichhorn’s car and body were found and back to his home, as Ihander had recently had knee surgery and was wearing a leg brace at the time. Merkel countered this by citing testimony from Ihander’s physical therapist that Ihander had appeared at their office with a swollen leg and that the defendant claimed he had walked three or four miles to his home after his car broke down. When questioned on his whereabouts by police, Ihander claimed he was at home at the time that Eichhorn’s body would have been moved.

No verdict was reached Wednesday. Jury deliberations will continue today. Jurors will decide verdicts on first-degree murder and second degree murder.

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