Overview
- After three days of testimony and closing arguments, Judge Christopher Stride scheduled a decision for May 15 on whether Marni Yang receives a new trial.
- Defense experts argued a downward bullet path indicated a shooter around 5-foot-10, asserting the 5-foot-tall Yang could not have fired the close-range shot that killed Rhoni Reuter.
- State forensic expert Todd Thorne countered that trajectory analysis cannot reliably exclude Yang because a victim’s movement can alter bullet angles.
- The defense highlighted DNA from an unidentified man on five unspent shells recovered at the scene as part of its newly presented evidence.
- Forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht testified that Reuter’s facial injuries predated the shooting by two to four days, as the defense advanced an alternative narrative that prosecutors disputed as insufficient and not newly discovered under legal standards.