Tony Bigoms, 54, listens during jury selection for his first-degree murder and abuse of a corpse trial in the November 2012 slaying of Dana Wilkes in Judge Barry Steelman's courtroom at the city-county courts building.Attorneys for both sides in the murder trial of Tony Bigoms completed their portions of the case Saturday afternoon. The sequestered jury will get today off before hearing closing arguments Monday and then beginning deliberations.
Bigoms is charged in the 2012 death of Dana Wilkes, whose body was found dumped, headless and handless.
Most of Saturday's work revolved around whether Hamilton County Criminal Court Judge Barry Steelman would allow prosecutors to reference, somewhat vaguely, the 2006 trial in which a jury acquitted Bigoms of kidnapping, rape and murder charges.
Prosecutor Lance Pope eventually was able to introduce a TBI forensic scientist who testified that Bigoms was in court in an earlier case where DNA was found in a woman's mouth and under her fingernails.
The point for the prosecution was that might have been why the killer cut off Wilkes' head and hands, which have not been found.
See more in Sunday's Times Free Press.