ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A college coed murdered 36 years ago died from two point-blank gunshots to the head, a forensic pathologist told jurors Wednesday at the trial of a retired nurse.

"The muzzle of the weapon was held up against the scalp," Dr. Bader Cassin said.

The Washtenaw County medical examiner also testified that a silk stocking garroting the victim's neck was cinched only after she perished from brain injury and did not contribute to her death.

Cassin's testimony and dozens of graphic autopsy and crime scene photos presented along with it Wednesday are important evidence to prosecutors as they try to distinguish the 1969 murder of Jane Mixer from the work of a serial killer believed to be targeting young women in the university community at the time.

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A lawyer for the defendant, Gary Leiterman, 62, has suggested Mixer died at the hands of a convicted murderer, John Norman Collins, suspected in half a dozen murders of women in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti in the late 1960s. Before cold-case investigators matched DNA from the crime scene to Leiterman last year, Mixer's murder was grouped with other killings.

With the photos and testimony from the pathologist, Chief Deputy District Attorney Steven Hiller highlighted differences in her murder. All but one of the other victims were strangled, beaten, sexually assaulted and, in some cases, stabbed. Their naked bodies were dumped in remote locations. Only one of the other victims was shot like Mixer was, and Mixer was not raped.

Police snapshots displayed for jurors also showed that Mixer's body was clothed and left in a relatively public location: a cemetery near a road. The faded images showed her body splayed on a grave. The 23-year-old law student went missing after accepting a ride home for spring break with a stranger, and the items she had packed, including clothes, a suitcase and a book, were piled on top of and beside her body. Her pantyhose were pulled down and her jumper pushed up.

As the washed-out pictures were flashed onto a large projection screen, jurors appeared solemn. A few women on the panel looked toward the victim's relatives, seated in the front row of the courtroom. On three separate occasions, Hiller approached the family to warn them that he was about to show disturbing pictures, but each time, Dan Mixer, the victim's 90-year-old father, replied, "I'll stay."

The coroner at the time of the murders has since died, so his successor, Cassin, explained the autopsy. He pointed out a trickle of dried blood running from one gunshot wound down the side of Mixer's face.

"This would have indicated her head was upright at the time of reception of that gunshot wound," Cassin said, adding that she likely lost consciousness "virtually immediately" after the shot.

One of the initial investigators, Donald Bennett, testified Wednesday that drag marks leading to the grave and the angle of the blood trickle led him to believe Mixer was killed somewhere else.

Bennett also testified briefly about a blood spot he observed on the victim's hand, a piece of evidence that is expected to become central to the defense case. DNA testing of the dried blood last year found it matched another convicted murder, John Ruelas. Ruelas, however, was just 4 years old at the time of the murder and lived in downtown Detroit, a 45-minute drive from the crime scene.

Bennett recounted seeing "a singular spot all by itself" and deciding to collect it for lab testing.

When defense attorney Gary Gabry asked if anything in his investigation indicated a small child had been near the scene of the crime, Bennett said, "No, I don't know anything about that."

The defense contends the presence of Ruelas' blood is proof of contamination at the state police laboratory.

Testimony continues Thursday morning.