MINOT N.D.
Prosecutors opened the trial of a former jailer and campus security guard Wednesday by saying that DNA under the fingernails of the college student he is accused of killing proves he committed the crime.
Mindy Morgenstern, a 22-year-old Valley City State University student, was found in her off-campus apartment in September strangled with her own belt, stabbed with her kitchen knives and covered with cleaning fluid.
Moe Gibbs, 34, is charged with murder in her death.
The DNA, found on her shirt and under her fingernails, will help prosecutors prove that he killed her, Barnes County State’s Attorney Brad Cruff told jurors in his opening statement.
“Mindy told us with her dying breath who the murderer was, with a scrape of her fingernails,” Cruff said.
Gibbs’ attorney, Jeff Bredahl, said the DNA which he called so slight it was “almost nothing” likely came from a doorknob in the apartment building where both Gibbs and Morgenstern lived. He also said other men were seen around the apartment building the day the woman died, and she had a hair in her hand that could not have come from Gibbs, who is bald.
