OLATHE, Kansas — When jurors hearing the case of an accused Kansas serial killer returned to their seats Wednesday after a mid-morning break, two yellow 55-gallon barrels sat before the jury box.

The jurors would learn quickly that the barrels had contained bodies — two victims, prosecutors say, of John E. Robinson Sr., on trial for killing three women in Kansas. Once the Kansas trial is completed, Robinson faces charges of killing the three women in Missouri.

A detective testified that he had been examining the trailer on Robinson's rural property in June 2000 when he learned that a cadaver dog had focused on some barrels by the tool shed. He went to investigate, he told the jury, and found the two barrels sitting upright near a shed on the property.

At this point, prosecutor Paul Morrison asked him to identify two yellow barrels positioned in front of the jury box. The detective, Harold Hughes, confirmed that they were the same yellow barrels but that they had since been cleaned.

Hughes told how he used pliers to loosen the bolt on the seal of the first yellow barrel and popped the lid to look inside. He said he repeated the same procedure with the second yellow barrel. "I opened the barrels and determined there was a body in each barrel," he testified.

Morrison then played a video clip that showed Hughes opening the second yellow drum and a glimpse at what was inside: a blue pillow partially covering the back of a body that was curled up in a fetal position. Opening the lid to the first barrel, the clip also showed another body slumped over in a similar manner.

"Did you smell anything?" asked Morrison. "I could smell it as I walked up to it," replied Hughes, who was to continue testifying after lunch.

Jurors, who have now viewed graphic autopsy photos and a sex tape, did not seem to react. Robinson appeared to be watching, tilting his head in the direction of the screen.

Sgt. Rick Roth of the Lenexa Police Department also took the stand Wednesday and testified that the yellow metal barrels had originally been found amid some plastic barrels and lawn equipment in undergrowth next to the shed.

When one of the search and rescue dogs showed an interest in them, Roth said he tilted one of the barrels and edged it away from the shed. He then laid it on its side and rolled it still further before propping it back upright.

"Was it just you or were you being helped?" asked Morrison. "It was just me," he replied. (The defense has suggested that the barrels were so heavy that at one point it took seven police officers to move them.)

When it once again was upright, he said, "I looked at it and saw a small bead of reddish liquid running down the side of it."

That's when he called for Hughes, with the Johnson County crime lab, to come and open them.

On cross-examination, defense attorney Pat Berrigan noted that Roth had rolled the barrels but not lifted them. "Did you see anybody on June 3rd lifting those barrels?" he asked. "No," Roth replied.

"When did you notice the smell?" Berrigan asked.

"When they popped the lid on the first barrel," Roth replied. "It was horrendous."

"You saw [the reddish] liquid and did not smell a thing?" Berrigan asked incredulously. "I did not smell a thing," Roth replied.

In other testimony Monday morning, Johnson County forensic chemist Andrew Guzman said he found a roll of silver duct tape in a green trash bucket in one of the trailer bedrooms on Robinson's property. "I noticed on the smooth surface there were some reddish brown stains or smears," he stated, adding that he collected the tape and sent it to the crime lab for further analysis.

Guzman said that several days later he also removed several strands of hair from the hands of Suzette Trouten but didn’t analyze them.

Allen Hamm, assistant director of the Johnson County crime lab, said he found 19 samples taken from the trailer that tested positive for blood. In particular, he testified, some of the samples came from several pieces of loose wallboard and molding on the south wall of the main living area. He also found some hair mixed with possible tissue on another board.

A former correspondent for Newsweek and People Weekly, Sue Miller Wiltz is currently writing a book about Robinson for Pinnacle Books. She is covering the trial for Courttv.com.