Prosecution, defense lay out cases in Partin murder trial

By Jamal Thalji, Times Staff Writer
Published March 12, 2008

NEW PORT RICHEY - The glass doors slide open. A man, a teenager and a little girl casually stroll into Wal-Mart Supercenter. A video camera watches them.

It is the morning of June 31, 2002. The next day, the teenager will be found with a broken neck and a slit throat.

On Tuesday, less than six years later, Phillup Alan Partin went on trial for the murder of Joshan Ashbrook, 16, the teenager in that video.

The videotape was part of the evidence the state presented to the second jury in six months to sit in judgment of Partin, 42.

The first jury was dismissed in October, after Circuit Judge William Webb declared a mistrial.

A Pasco sheriff's detective had incorrectly testified that a stain found near the body was not forensically tested. It had been tested, as the state and defense learned to their surprise afterward, prompting the mistrial.

Prosecutor Mike Halkitis told jurors the evidence he would use to link Partin to Ashbrook's death: tire tracks found near her body that could have come from his pickup; eyewitnesses who saw them together before her death; the blood stain found in Partin's old bedroom; and the DNA sample that Ashbrook captured from Partin as she fought for her life.

Attorney William Bennett delivered the defense's opening. He told jurors that the defense won't challenge the state's evidence - just the state's interpretation of that evidence.

The trial is expected to take all of this week. Partin faces the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder. If the jury finds him guilty of that, then next week they will have to decide whether he should be sent to death row.

[Last modified March 11, 2008, 22:57:18]