text: Live update: Murder trial of Corbett resident Hazelynn Stomps begins | OregonLive.com
  on January 11, 2011 at 2:56 PM, updated January 11, 2011 at 6:17 PM
  View full sizeBenjamin Brink/The OregonianHazelynn Stomps listens during a pretrial hearing. Stomps is accused of killing her husband and abusing the corpse. Hazelynn Stomps was jailed nearly two years ago on accusations she killed her husband and burned his remains in a fire on their Corbett property. She goes on trial today. 4:47 p.m. Defense attorney Randall Vogt has completed his opening statements, which took just nine minutes. Prosecutor Kirsten Snowden spoke for about 80 minutes. Vogt told jurors that despite all the power and resources of the state, "the prosecution cannot prove its case because the evidence simply isn't there." Vogt said prosecutors can't say where Jerry Stomps was killed, what day he was killed, who killed him and why that person killed him. "The prosecution won't be able to prove if he was shot, where he was shot," Vogt said. "The prosecution based its case on Lynn Stomps' behavior on the first week of February '09." Vogt said his client's behavior was "irrational," and the stories she told investigators contained "inconsistencies" and "unlikely events." But he said a "guilty mind" and a "cover up" does not mean she murdered her husband of nearly 39 years. Vogt said Jerry Stomps could have died by accident, or at the hands of somebody else. "You have to arrive at the conclusion that the death of Mr. Stomps is simply a mystery," Vogt said. The trial will continue tomorrow with the first prosecution witnesses taking the stand.
  3:38 p.m. - 4:20 p.m. Prosecutor Kirsten Snowden continues to pick apart Hazelynn Stomps' rendition of events. Jerry Stomps didn't have his wallet with him on Feb. 6, the day his wife reported him missing. The injuries she said she suffered when she was flung over a bridge appeared suspicious. Snowden flashed photographs of Hazelynn Stomps in the hospital across a screen. "She had no bruises, no scratches up and down her legs," Snowden said. "Her head isn't injured. There are no welts. She said she lost consciousness." Blood on Jerry Stomps' gun, which was found in the couple's home, belonged to Jerry Stomps. His burned bone fragments were found on the couple's property, including in a metal trash can that prosecutors have placed at the front of the courtroom. Scientist verified that DNA in the bones was Jerry Stomps'. Investigators discovered Hazelynn Stomps was in debt, which was a surprise to the family. "Everything that she told them about the attack and what happened that day is simply forensically, physically impossible," Snowden said. Snowden concluded her presentation. Defense attorney Randall Vogt is expected to begin his opening statements after a break. He expects they will last 30 minutes.
  3:06 p.m. - 3:38 p.m. Twelve jurors - and two alternate jurors - have taken their seats in the courtroom. Deputy district attorney Kirsten Snowden begins her opening statements with these words: "She almost got away with it. Almost. But at the very last minute something went horribly wrong. It was a catastrophic oversight. She hadn't planned on it. And it changed everything." Snowden then talked about how Hazelynn Stomps - who goes by Lynn - was found by some passers-by near a bridge over Gordon Creek with a broken hip on Feb. 6, 2009. From the beginning, investigators noticed oddities and inconsistencies in her story. Lynn Stomps told them she and her husband met a man named Dave by the Sandy River because he was interested in buying their boat. But Lynn and Jerry Stomps didn't bring their boat with them when they purportedly met the man. Lynn Stomps also began to tell investigators that it's possible that she and her husband didn't meet Dave through a Craigslist ad, instead they may have met Dave at Les Schwab or Pounder Oil, Snowden said. The couple's two adult sons later discovered their dad's gun in a fanny pack next to the front door. "As (their) son Jason says, 'He took that gun to church,'" Snowden said. "The moment they found that gun by the front door, they knew something was terribly wrong."
  2:57 p.m. Jurors have not yet entered the courtroom. Defense attorney Randall Vogt objects to a pool TV camera being in the courtroom. "A jury that knows it's going to be covered on TV is going to be subconsciously influenced" by the presence of a TV camera filming the trial, Vogt said. He added that he thought TV stations have kept up a "constant drumbeat of ill ilk" in their coverage of two-years of hearings leading up to today. Jurors are more likely to find a defendant guilty if they know the story will be broadcast across TV, Vogt said. He then made a distinction between newspaper and TV coverage. "People who read the newspaper, frankly, ...give the news a little more consideration," Vogt said. "...The print media ...are not as sensational." Judge Richard Baldwin declined to ban the TV camera from the courtroom. He noted that a TV camera man and a still newspaper photographer in the room shall not take any pictures of jurors, but were otherwise allowed to be in the room
  2:48 p.m. Prosecutors are about ready to begin opening statements before a jury in the trial of Hazelynn Stomps, the Corbett-area woman accused of murdering her husband and conjuring up a story that he disappeared when a stranger attacked him near the Sandy River in Feb. 2009. More
  Stomps, 57, is sitting quietly at the front of the Multnomah County Circuit courtroom. A photo of Jerry Stomps kissing his wife on the forehead is displayed on a screen at the front of the courtroom. The couple's family members - including those subpoenaed to testify in the trial - are sitting throughout the courtroom. One of them, a niece, said she created a Website in memory of her uncle. Hazelynn Stomps was jailed nearly two years ago on accusations that she killed her husband and slowly burned his body for days in an open-air fire on their large rural property. In previous hearings, prosecutors have said Hazelynn Stomps had incinerated her husbands remains - down to tiny bone fragments - when she told police she and her husband had been attacked by two men near Oxbow Park and the Sandy River. On Feb. 6., 2009, a passer-by found her lying by the side of a road near a bridge. She told police she was thrown from the bridge by the men. She was brought to Legacy Emanuel Hospital, where she was treated for a broken hip and at least one broken rib. Investigators said she appeared eager to give them information over the next several days so they could find her husband. After days of searching for Jerry Stomps, investigators found no trace of him. They began to suspect her as time passed. By Feb. 12, 2009, detectives pressed her to tell the "truth." At that point, investigators knew blood on a gun seized from the home was human, and that burned bones on the property were also human. DNA tests later determined the blood and bones belonged to Jerry Stomps, 60. The trial is expected to last no more than two weeks.