A jury of nine men and seven women was selected in Kenosha County Monday, for the trial of a man accused of the brutal deaths of a Rock County woman and her two teen aged children. James Koepp is charged in the deaths of Danyetta Lentz and her children, Scott and Nicole, in January of 2007. The jurors are expected to be sequestered for up to two weeks during the trial. The 50 year-old Koepp was granted a jury from another county based on media coverage of the triple homicide case.
One of the issues that will be determined at the trial is whether a defense DNA expert should be allowed to testify. Prosecutors say the judge has ruled the expert could only testify about her original report. But the defense says their expert came to the same conclusions as the state crime lab. The judge says he will rule on the issue at trial.
Prosecutors filed three counts of First Degree of Intentional Homicide against Koepp in January of 2008, a year after Lentz, her 17-year-old daughter Nicole, and 14-year-old son Scott were found strangled and stabbed to death in their trailer south of Janesville. Koepp, a resident of the same mobile home park as the victims, was the prime suspect from early in on the investigation, but investigators waited until all evidence was processed at the state crime lab before moving ahead with charges.
WCLO