The Jeffrey Willis trial will stream live on woodtv.com.
MUSKEGON, Mich. (WOOD) — A medical examiner is expected to discuss Rebekah Bletsch’s autopsy results this afternoon as testimony continues in the trial of Jeffrey Willis, who’s accused of murdering Bletsch more than three years ago.
In his opening statement Thursday, Muskegon County Prosecutor D.J. Hilson said Willis was trying to kidnap Bletsch, a 36-year-old mother, before he shot her as she jogged near her Dalton Township home in June 2014.
Hilson listed some of his evidence, including a glove of Willis’ with Bletsch’s DNA on it; a file titled “VICS” on his computer that included a subfolder labeled with her initials and the date of her death; and perhaps most importantly, a ballistics test showing a handgun found in Willis’ minivan was the one used to kill her.
Prosecutors will try to paint the picture of a serial killer, describing a man who wrote a list of items to go in a rape kit; who left nearly a dozen bottles of bleach on his late grandfather’s property; who had hundreds of murder porn videos on his computer; who kept a stolen gun, gloves and handcuffs in his van.
They’ll also bring up the other charges Willis face — the attempted abduction of a teen girl in Fruitland Township April 2016 and the kidnapping and murder of Jessica Heeringa from the Norton Shores gas station where she worked three years before that.
But the defense is blaming Bletsch’s death on Willis’ cousin, Kevin Bluhm, saying he was “stalking” Bletsch on Facebook and that he had the marksmanship skills necessary to kill her. The defense claims Bluhm took items from Willis’ van and returned them after killing Bletsch.
Bluhm, a former sergeant at a state prison in Muskegon, is charged as an accessory after the fact in Heeringa’s murder.
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