Brianna Denison

Brianna Denison Murder

Nevada

Brianna Denison's body was found, last February, in a field in Reno, Nevada. The 19-year-old had been missing and feared abducted for a month.

Denison vanished from the off-campus rental house of a friend who was a student at the University of Nevada-Reno, on Jan. 20. She was back in her hometown for winter break from Santa Barbara City College, where she attends classes. Police say she was last seen going to sleep on her friend's couch for the night after they attended a party at a Reno casino.

Police said Brianna Denison had been abducted and strangled in what they called a sexually motivated crime.

DNA evidence linked Denison's kidnapping to two other attacks on women near the university late 2007, police said. An earlier campus attack also could be related. In that incident, the attacker brazenly raped a woman at gunpoint in a garage where campus police park their cruisers.

With the community of college students now in fear, the hunt was on for a serial rapist. Students began carrying Tasers, pepper spray and bear spray.

After 10 months of wondering who killed Brianna, Reno police arrested a 27-year-old Spanish Springs father on suspicion of her murder, as well as the rape and kidnapping of another college student that occurred weeks earlier.

Authorities said critical DNA evidence links James Michael Biela to the strangulation and sexual assault of Brianna.

An anonymous Secret Witness tipster is being credited with leading detectives to Biela, a construction worker who left the area in March. Biela sold his pickup where he allegedly assaulted the December victim, and then returned to Reno in September, authorities said.

On November 12, Biela's estranged girlfriend let police take a DNA sample of their 4-year-old son, and on November 25, a Washoe County Crime Laboratory scientist said the biological father of the child could not be excluded as Brianna's killer. A judge signed a warrant for Biela's arrest, and also ordered he give police a DNA sample.

About 5:30 a.m., the same day, scientists confirmed that Biela's DNA profile matched the DNA left on Brianna's body. It also matched the body of the December victim. The DNA also matched the forensic evidence he left on the back door knob of the apartment, where she vanished, and a condom packet found near where the November victim was attacked.

The Secret Witness tip evolved after a friend of Biela's estranged girlfriend, Carleen Harmon, reported that Harmon, in September, had found women's underwear in Biela's new truck. Police announced months ago they believed the suspect had a fetish for collecting size small women's panties, and that two pairs were found with Brianna's body. Harmon said she confronted Biela, who said he found the size small thong style panties at a Seattle laundromat.

Police said Biela's DNA matched to DNA found on one of the pairs of underwear found under Brianna's legs, where she was dumped in a Reno field near a business where Harmon was working. Following the Secret Witness tip, Detective Adam Wygnanski, on Nov. 7, met with Biela and told him he was mentioned in the Brianna murder investigation. Wygnanski said he denied involvement, and refused to submit a DNA sample.

Biela said Harmon could provide him with an alibi. Five days later, detectives met Harmon who said she could not account for the whereabouts of her boyfriend of six years.

Resources...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,331016,00.html

http://m.rgj.com/news.jsp?key=133721&rc=lo

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=4301456&page=1

www.msnbc.msn.com

UPDATES

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03-30-09

Request Denied

James Biela filed a request seeking a new court appointed public attorney for his murder case. The request was heard by the court March 19th.

The accused killer and rapist was forced to sit down right next to the two attorneys he's asking to have replaced, Richard Davies and Jay Slocum.

Judge Perry said that under case law, a defendant must stay with the lawyer appointed to him, unless there are irreconcilable differences and conflicts that would not give the defendant fair representation. Perry says he feels Biela's attorneys are doing a "good job" defending him.

After the Judge Perry denied his request, Biela stormed out of the courtroom muttering under his breath and even slamming his handcuffs against his body, visibly angry about the judge's decision.

Read resource details...

http://www.kolotv.com/home/headlines/41531972.html

http://www.kolotv.com/home/headlines/41506707.html

01/10/09

Will Michael Biela Get The Death Penalty?

According to Washoe County District Attorney Dick Gammick his office will be seeing the death penalty against James Michael Biela. Biela is charged with the rape and murder of Brianna Dennison and the sexual asault of two other college students.

According to an article by Martha Bellisle of the Reno Gazette Journal, Gammick listed four aggravating factors he said prosecutors would prove to secure a death sentence against Biela: that Denison was sexually penetrated before, during or after she was killed and that Biela committed three other felonies involving force against a person.

The felonies cited are the alleged sexual assaults of two other women and alleged kidnapping of one of them, Gammick said.

While four aggravators were listed, jurors need only to approve one to secure a death sentence, depending on mitigating factors.

Gammick said the county public defender office, which is representing Biela, submitted a list of mitigating factors to prosecutors at a meeting Wednesday. He would not reveal the list.

Read resource details...

http://www.rgj.com/article/20090109/NEWS01/901090444/1004/NEWS