Mark Jensen Murder Trial Day 18

Day 18 – 1/31/08

"A Fetish is Forever"

Apologies, due to the extremely poor audio on the DVD, some of this report will be choppy!

Det. Ratzburg retakes the stand.

The interview between Det, Ratzburg and Jensen is on DVD and a portion will be played for the court. (The entire video is 5 hours, but only 2 hours and 40 minutes will be played for the jury.)

Ratzburg shows Mark the file of computers searches taken off his home computer. Mark sure is looking at the computer searches! Mark appears to be playing confused about the computer searches. Like he is saying he doesn't know why Julie was looking at stuff like that.

Mark said he went to work at noon on the day Julie died. (Not what we heard yesterday in testimony!)

Ratzburg reminds Mark that he said, he thought Julie died of an adverse drug reaction. (How could Mark know that unless he did the computer searches?)

Going over the emails that went back and forth between Mark and Kelly. Ratzburg wants to know how they got on the home computer.

(Since it was a dial-up connection, the e-mails could only download while someone was on the computer. If they are sandwiched in between searches, he's toast!)

Mark denies an affair with Kelly! Admits they are seeing each other now, but not before Julie's death. No sex prior to January! Bingo! Perjury…the jury is actually hearing Mark lie his arse off!

Ratzburg tells Mark that Perry has been eliminated as being the "stalker."
He says Julie gave them samples of Mark's handwriting. They know it wasn't Perry leaving the porn. It was Mark's handwriting on the photos!!!! Ratzburg goes on to say that he thinks Mark was the stalker and was getting back at Julie for her affair.

Ratzburg is also saying that they told Julie it was Mark and recommended that she and Mark get help. He's saying that he thought that Julie and Mark had worked it out between themselves and left the case alone at that point.

Mark doesn't "recall" such stuff!

Ratzburg is really giving Mark the royal treatment here. We're trying to help you... Julie's dead, it's over... its no big deal.

Mark denies he put the pictures around the house.

Mark is getting confused...

Ratzburg says the only one who didn't believe Mark was the stalker was Julie.

Now Mark says he did some, but not all! (Say what?)

Ratzburg says Mark misled police. He also pushes the "fact" that the handwriting on the photos was Mark's. They traced Perry to New York at the time some of the calls were made.

Says Mark "had an axe to grind" with Julie. Tells Mark he originally denied the photographs, then admitted to some.....

Mark is still trying to pin this on Perry.

We are watching the end of the video. Ratzburg is hammering Jensen that he had to do something physically to Julie. Ratzburg is saying she had to have been touched prior to her death.

Ratzburg mentions that they may have sex problems and now Julie is sick and can't do anything. He says Mark must have been frustrated and pushed her. Julie is frail. Somebody had to touch her.

Mark admits he moved her, helping her sit up at 7:30. He came in and checked on her, may have moved her. There was no conversation between Mark and Julie; no I didn’t say anything to her.

Mark says moved her about 10:30. He may have moved her leg and covered up, tried to tuck her in.

Mark: She was "out" and it took a lot of effort to move her. She was on her back, he rolled her over on her side. Mark says he made have put her in death position but she was still alive. Then he went to work.

Demonstration:
Mark pretends he's Julie, Ratzburg pretends he's Mark. Julie is laying on her back with her head back; he picked her up by her shoulders and rolled her to her side. Her breathing seemed to get better, he went to work.

Ratzburg asks how her face got mashed. No real answer...

(11:30 - 12:00) Julie doesn't wake up when he rolls her over, but she's breathing. Mark's says he was "trying to fix her breathing." (But, but, but…the nose was scrunched already!!!) The nose was scrunched because of rigor. So he's lying that she was even breathing at the time!

Ratzburg to Jensen: There has to be some explanation. You were the only one in the house besides Julie and you say you don’t know? What will your parents think when they hear this?

Ratzburg asks if Jensen if he will take a polygraph to clear this up. Ratzburg is explaining how the polygraph works. Jensen says yes! (We find out that the day Jensen was to take the polygraph, his lawyer called and said Jensen wouldn’t be coming in and that he wanted the files the police had on Mark.)

Now saying he left at "oneish" to go to Burger King.
(Earlier in the DVD he said he left for the office between 11 and 12! Go figure!)

Jambois and Ratzburg are going through Julie's notebook about the all the harassing calls and porn photos.

(Wowser! Mark was relentless! No wonder Julie was a bundle of nerves! Many, many calls to Mark's office and pictures left on his truck at work. None of the people in the office ever heard of them! And, how could Mark get these calls when he didn't answer the phone?)

After a year of two of this, I would have thought Julie would have picked up on the idea that Mark may be playing dirty tricks on her?

I hope the jury picked up that Mark admitted to doing "some" of the pictures and notes what Julie wrote in the journal. I think it shows the whole picture of his trying to “Gaslight” her!

Ratzburg is going through Julie’s calendar with Jambois. There are entries on almost everyday from October 1998: Normal "Mommy things"

Heartworm for pets, bake, kid', pix, holiday TV specials for the kids, weddings, Packer football games. She even made entries for 1999 including holidays and school closings!

(Do any of these entries sound like they were written by a depressed, crazy person getting ready to off herself? She sounded like a mother who was happy to involve herself in her boys' lives, and who was organized in how she did it.)

OHHHHHHH! Mark's stuff from his office is being introduced as evidence!!

The jury is asked to exit and the conversation continues out their hearing.
Warning: For the faint of heart, turn away from your computer!

This is a stack of papers sent over from Stifel in 2004, after Mark wasn't working there anymore. The Stifel folks felt they might be useful in the investigation! Some of it written on Kelly's stationary!

To put it bluntly, there are numerous hand drawn pictures of vaginas and penises and very explicit sex talk. Gross! (Swear to god, have never heard the word penis said so many times in a half hour.)

How many times can the judge say weird and hinky?

Essentially, the judge is ruling that Mark is kinky, not deviant!

Line of the day from the Judge... "A Fetish is Forever"

Mistrial!!!! Knew Albee would call for it!

Oh my! They are going to show it all to the jury! This is just so creepy!

Mercifully, the jury is only shown one page of drawings and a page of the sex talk. I’m pretty sure the jury has had the same reaction as all of you must have by now.

Court ends for the day and I feel so dirty, I’m going to take a shower!

Tomorrow, Albee’s cross of Ratzburg and the prosecution will call its final witness. Monday, the defense begins its Case in Chief.

Thanks ritanita and Intrepid for your insights!