What to Know
- Jenna Burleigh disappeared in 2017 after leaving a bar near Temple's campus in North Philadelphia.
- Monday, a state police officer described finding her body inside a blue bin in a shed in rural Pennsylvania
- Josh Hupperterz has pleaded guilty to abuse of a corpse for putting Burleigh's body in the shed, but not guilty to her murder.
Ed Burleigh took the stand Wednesday as the last witness for the prosecution in the murder trial of Josh Hupperterz, who is accused of killing Burleigh's daughter Jenna in a bloody encounter in a North Philadelphia apartment.
Closing arguments are set for Thursday.
He answered questions about the last time he saw his daughter alive, which was hours before she met Hupperterz at a bar just off Temple University's campus.
Hupperterz, 29, is accused of killing Jenna Burleigh in 2017 inside an apartment he shared in North Philadelphia with roommate Jack Miley, then trying to hide her body at his grandparents’ rural property in Wayne County, Pennsylvania. Prosecutors allege he and Burleigh engaged in a deadly struggle following her objection to a sex act.
Jenna Burleigh, who was in her first week at Temple, had car trouble earlier that day, Aug. 30, 2017, and her father came from Montgomery County, where the Burleighs live, to lend her a hand. He called AAA, he testified, then took Jenna to dinner.
Once AAA arrived to tow Jenna's car, the father and daughter shared one last goodbye. Their hug was actually shown in court, caught on a surveillance camera.
"As they loaded the car and took it away, I had the opportunity to say goodbye and give her a hug," he testified. Later, outside the courtroom, he said he took the stand "in memory of Jenna."
The Burleigh parents have looked on from the front row of the courtroom every day of the trial, now in its eighth day.
The trial took a dramatic twist from the opening arguments last week when defense attorney David Nenner alleged that the roommate Miley was in fact the killer. He has since built Hupperterz's entire defense around the allegation that Hupperterz indeed began fighting with Burleigh early on the morning of Aug. 31, 2017, after the young woman grew angry with his advances.
But it was Miley, Nenner has argued, who stirred from his sleep and strangled Burleigh to keep her from screaming in the apartment the two men shared. Miley testified earlier in the trial that he fell asleep long before violence broke out between Hupperterz and Burleigh, and that he didn't wake up until 1 p.m. later that day.
Nenner called a psychopathologist to the stand Wednesday afternoon to testify as an expert on how drugs and alcohol can affect a person's state of mind. Dr. Dan Levy, a psychiatrist of 23 years, testified at length about "blackouts" from excessive and improper alcohol and drug use. But the judge had barred Nenner from getting into possible side effects of overuse, like suicidal or homicidal tendencies.
Nenner has pinned his arguments for reasonable doubt on the notion that Miley was so intoxicated from the combination of Xanax, beer and whiskey that he killed Burleigh, as she and Hupperterz fought, and that he doesn’t remember it.
On Tuesday, the Philadelphia Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Samuel Gulino, testified for more than an hour, giving a blow-by-blow accounting of the "extensive injuries" Burleigh had all over her body. The testimony took a toll on the large contingent of friends and family of Jenna Burleigh who have come each day to sit next to Jenna's parents.
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Throughout Gulino's rundown of the many bruises, lacerations, cuts and stab wounds across Burleigh's body, the contingent cried or tried to fight back tears.
Burleigh's father sat front row, as he has every day, though his wife did not stay in the courtroom during Gulino's testimony.
Hupperterz already pleaded guilty to abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence for moving Burleigh's body to his grandparents' house at the onset of the trial. But he has pleaded not guilty to murder and using an instrument of a crime.
Hupperterz did not be take the stand in his own defense, he told Bronson Wednesday morning.
Closing arguments will take place Thursday morning, followed by the jury being charged and entering into deliberations.
