ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Jurors began deliberating murder charges Friday morning against a retired nurse accused of killing a law school student 36 years ago.

The panel began weighing evidence against Gary Leiterman, 62, after listening to closing arguments that focused largely on how to interpret DNA evidence in the case.

Jane Mixer, 23, was shot twice in the head and dumped in a cemetery March 21, 1969, after telling her family that she had accepted a ride home from the University of Michigan with a stranger. She was making the trip to announce her recent engagement to a graduate student.

Leiterman, a grandfather who was a 25-year-old pharmaceutical representative at the time, had no known connection with the victim, but new forensic tests initiated by cold case detectives last year revealed his DNA in stains on Mixer's pantyhose.

Story continues

advertisement

The same state police laboratory, however, also matched a drop of blood on the victim's hand to another man, a convicted murderer who was only 4 years old at the time of the crime.

Leiterman's attorney urged jurors to acquit him because of the blood spot, which he called "one very damning piece of evidence that should cause you all types of concern in this case."

The blood belonged to John Ruelas, who grew up to kill his mother and is now serving a life sentence. The bloody clothes he wore while beating her to death were being tested at the lab at the same time as the evidence from the Mixer case.

"It was a drop apart from the rest of the blood, sitting there on the hand," Gabry said. He told the jury that if there was no contamination, then they had to believe Ruelas "who lived in downtown Detroit, who was 4 years old, dripped his blood on her hand" at the time of the murder.

Prosecutor Steven Hiller dismissed the allegations of shoddy work at the lab.

"There's been a lot of talk about contamination surrounding that blood spot, [but] there isn't a single bit of evidence that contamination occurred," Hiller said.

He noted that scientists found hundreds of cells that matched Leiterman's genetic profile.

"It is a lot of DNA. It is not something you pick up off a coffee cup," the prosecutor said. "What that shows ... was that there was substantial physical contact between the defendant and Janie Mixer."

He cited one expert who said there was only a one in 171 trillion chance the DNA was not Leiterman's.

"Those are the odds that the defendant did not commit this crime. That's not reasonable doubt," Hiller said.

Leiterman remained expressionless during the arguments. His wife, Solly, and Mixer's father, Dan, brother, Dan Jr. and sister, Barbara, were in court for the arguments.