MUSKEGON, Mich. - Friday marks the fourth day of testimony in the trial for Jessica Heeringa's murder.
Jeffrey Willis is charged with her death. Heeringa went missing on April 26, 2013, from her job at a gas station in Norton Shores. The 25-year-old mother was never seen again and is presumed dead though her body has never been found.
Muskegon County Prosecutor D.J. Hilson is expected to call about 6 more witnesses to the stand including Willis' ex-wife and his coworker from Herman Miller.
Live updates:
5:05 p.m.
Court adjourned until Tuesday 9:30 a.m.
5:00 p.m.
In cross exam, Bishop says she believed Willis was seeing someone else during their marriage. Willis is now visibly tearful.
4:51 p.m.
Bishop says there would've been no reason for there to be bottles of bleach in the basement of Willis' grandfather's home. Grandfather passed away in 2010.
4:46 p.m.
When Willis' mother passed away, Bishop said she became the care taker of Willis' grandfather, Ham. She would clean his house, visit him, take him to run errands.
4:43 p.m.
Bishop says the sexy toys were not used by her.
4:39 p.m.
Bishop testifies that she never got the messages from Cpl. Hare.
4:38 p.m.
Bishop said the dog crate was made of metal, wouldn't have needed wood to repair it. But Willis told officers he went to get a wooden board to repair a dog kennel.
4:35 p.m.
Willis told police he was home alone when they came to speak with him, but Bishop said she was inside and so was Willis' cell phone even though he told officers his wife had it elsewhere.
4:32 p.m.
Bishop would leave on some weekends for church related retreats.
4:23 p.m.
Bishop was unemployed in 2013 due to disability. She was insulin dependent -- uses an insulin pump since 2005 (not injections). She says it was unusual for her to need needles unless her pump malfunctioned.
4:21 p.m.
Bishop said in 2013 Willis weighed about 300 pounds, short hair, trimmed beard, blonde highlights.
4:20 p.m.
Charlene Bishop is now on the stand. Willis' now ex-wife. Married for 13 years, knew each other for 5 years prior to that.
4:18 p.m.
Neither officer recall if there were padlocks on the Baily Street house (Willis' deceased grandfather's home). They went there to check for a wood pile to corroborate Willis' alibi, but didn't find anything or look inside the residence. Said the windows were hard to see through.
4:11 p.m.
Cpl. Hare called Willis' now ex-wife asking to set up a time to talk on June 4, 2013. Cpl. Hare then left Willis' now ex-wife a voicemail saying"we figured it all out" & "unless you have something else to add" on June 6, 2013. He said he didn't remember making those phone calls.
4:03 p.m.
Hare recounts same alibi as the one Sgt. Baker.
4:02 p.m.
"I don't mean this disrespectfully, but were you paying attention?" prosecutor asks Cpl. Hare. He replies yes.
4:00 p.m.
Cpl. Christopher Hare now on the stand. He investigated the tip that first came in about Willis alongside Sgt. Baker.
3:57 p.m.
Sgt. Baker said he doesn't remember if Willis actually had a dog or if he had any scratches on his face. Baker struggling to recall much of their encounter in cross exam.
3:45 p.m.
Willis told Norton Shores police he owned a pistol and they asked for his cell phone. He said his wife had it and that he would bring it the following day. But Baker says they were able to check his van -- it was extremely clean.
3:41 p.m.
Willis first told police in May 2015 that he had been to the ExxonMobil day of Heeringa's disappearance around 5:00p.m. and talked to Jessica for 3 minutes while she was working (said he knew her). He said he played card games from 5:00p.m. -9:30 p.m. He said he went home after that until 12:30 a.m. He said he went to his grandpa's vacant house to get a board to fix a dog house. He said he went TacoBell from there and then back home.
3:25 p.m.
Court is back in session. Norton Shores Police Sgt. Todd Baker is on the stand now, who worked on special task force who received tips on Heeringa's case. Officer says thousands of tips came in. Jurors are now looking at tip #268 which was about Willis.
3:14 p.m.
Afternoon break starting now. As Clifford Baron walked off the stand Willis looked at him and laughed about something with his attorney.
3:03 p.m.
"We all went to the gas station a lot." Clifford made a comment saying that Willis was the one who took the girl from the gas station since he had all the scratches (it was just a joke he says), but Willis became angry. Willis said the scratches were from a brake job, but Clifford said those type of injuries don't happen during a brake job.
3:02 p.m.
Clifford Baron now on stand. He worked alongside Willis at Herman Miller. Said he came to work with scratches on his hand, his arm and a deep scratch on his face. He says Willis had definitely been bleeding.
2:58 p.m.
Defense is now providing a second possibility to JLH password. Instead, Johnson says it could be Jeff. 4 brothers. 27 age of his father. Lawrence the name of Willis' father. H for Ham, his grandfather.
2:56 p.m.
Willis has been very involved in the cross examination process, more so then in the Bletsch case it appears-- writing and passing along questions to his attorney frequently.
2:47 p.m.
In cross exam, defense attorney Fred Johnson asks if anything pertaining to Jessica Heeringa were saved prior to her disappearance. McCarthy says no. The Jessica Lynn Heeringa folder and April, 27, 2013 password both were created after her disappearance.
2:32 p.m.
In a sub folder, there were quite a few photos of Jessica saved from Facebook.
2:21 p.m.
Now, jurors are looking at a photo of a folder called "VICS" on Willis' hard drive. There were subfolders labeled with codes and initials including 'RSB' and 'JLH'. One of the coded folders stood for April 26, 2013. No photos or videos of Jessica included in the 'JLH' folder. But there is a webpage of Jessica's missing person flyer with photo collage of Jessica saved in a sub folder.
2:17 p.m.
Willis went to middle and high school sporting events to video girls.
2:13 p.m.
Willis also had videos of Michelle Schnotala, his coworker. It appeared the people in his videos had no idea they were being recorded.
2:10 p.m.
Willis videoed his neighbors while they were in their home. He videoed women and girls from outside their bedroom windows as they undressed.
2:06 p.m.
Folder titled "Vics" on the hard drive. In a folder called "Miscellaneous" Willis had saved a webpage about Jessica Heeringa. He also had a folder called "Jessica". The folder was created on the 4/26/2016 (three year anniversary of Heeringa's disappearance)
Spreadsheet titled 2013, it had a list of different purchases he made and logged the dates/businesses/amount of money spent. ExxonMobil appeared on this list several times.
2:02 p.m.
Many of the items found in Willis' possession were similar to those used in these violent videos found on his hard drive.
1:59 p.m.
McCarthy had to go through all the content on this hard drive. Said it took him hours.
1:55 p.m.
Tens of thousands of user created folders and subfolders filled with images & videos: 'the nature of those videos were murder videos, kidnapping videos, sexual assault videos, rape videos..." found on Willis' hard drive. Large amounts of pornography, but McCarthy says this was the largest collection of murder type videos he had ever seen. Willis likely downloaded these videos from websites. McCarthy said Willis frequently visited websites like "rapelover.com"
1:53 p.m.
McCarthy received Willis' hard drives for testing back in the lab.
1:47 p.m.
McCarthy's task force in the computer crime unit executed the search warrant of Willis' home.
1:43 p.m.
McCarthy is explaining how his job works when computers are seized as evidence.
1:40 p.m.
Court begins. Prosecution calls witness from Gerald McCarthy of Michigan State Police. He will testify as an expert in computer forensic science. McCarthy is now retired.
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Emma Nicolas is a multimedia journalist. Have a news tip or question for Emma? Get in touch by email enicolas@wzzm13.com, Facebook or Twitter.
