GMA: Tortola Murder Trial Intensifies

ByABC News
April 23, 2001, 10:28 PM

April 24 -- The trial of four men accused of killing a beautiful Connecticut artist on the Caribbean island of Tortola has pitted the testimony of a jailhouse snitch against the defense claim that the woman killed herself.

William Labrador, Evan George, Alexander Benedetto, and Michael Spicer stand accused of killing 34-year-old Lois McMillen, whose body was found on a beach in Tortola last January. The prosecution finished its arguments last week, punctuating its case with testimony from a man who shared a cell with Labrador and said he admitted to the killing.

Meanwhile, defense attorneys argued that McMillen committed suicide. Though her autopsy revealed that McMillen drowned, her parents say it was no accident.

"Lois was murdered,"Russell McMillen, the victim's father, told ABCNEWS' Don Dahler. "There were articles found on one side of the road, evidence of a struggle there. There was blood found on the rocks across from the road. Lois's body was found in the water down beyond the rocks near the shoreline. She didn't just fall in the water."

Suicide Suggestion Surprises Family

The family was shocked at the end of the first week of testimony when a defense attorney suggested that injuries seen on Lois McMillen's body were caused by a suicide attempt. Prosecutors quickly produced a forensic pathologist who said that was "laughable, there was nothing about the case that suggests suicide." The defense offered no evidence to contradict that during its cross-examination.

But so far, observers say the circumstantial evidence presented in court has revealed at best a tenuous connection between the murder and the four friends.

According to a British forensic expert, Spicer's shirt did indeed contain drops of blood that had a partial DNA link to Lois McMillen, but under cross-examination by defense he admitted the blood could also have come from millions of other people.

Labrador's sneakers, found at the vacation home where the men were staying, contained blood as well, but the scientist said on the stand the blood could not have come from McMillen.

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