By Seamus McGraw
(Continued)
Feds have claimed jurisdiction in Dru's slaying almost since the beginning
Since Dru's body was discovered in April 2004 in a ravine near Crookston, Minn., not far from the home Rodriguez shared with his mother, authorities have insisted that the slaying was a federal case because it involved a crime that spanned two states and because it involved a kidnapping. That has significantly raised the stakes for Rodriquez. While North Dakota does not have the death penalty and has executed no one in a century, federal courts can impose capital punishment and prosecutors are seeking it in this case.
For their part, defense attorneys have thus far never directly denied that Rodriguez was responsible for Dru's death, and instead have mounted a strategy aimed specifically at scuttling the government's plan to execute Rodriguez, primarily by challenging the federal court's jurisdiction in the case.
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| Dru Sjodin |
They have suggested that Dru in all likelihood died while still in North Dakota, and that the case therefore belongs in state court.
But prosecutors have countered with expert testimony indicating that Dru died as a result of suffocation, a knife wound to her neck and possibly because of exposure and that the evidence strongly suggests that she died in Minnesota. What's more, tiny blood samples taken from Rodriguez' car matched Dru's DNA, prosecutors have alleged, and there were traces of far more blood found with her body, a strong indication that she was alive up until the time she was dumped in Minnesota. Hair and fiber samples taken from Dru's body also were linked to Rodriguez.
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