WSB's Veronica Waters reports Rita, a three-month-old Shepherd mix housed at the Fulton County animal shelter on Roswell Road, was brought in to assist forensic veterinarian Dr. Melinda Merck in her testimony at the animal cruelty trial of Justin and Joshua Moulder. The brothers, 19 and 17, are accused of torturing a three-month-old pit bull puppy back in August and baking the animal in a pre-heated gas oven. The dog's muzzle and feet were strapped with duct tape and she'd been doused with paint.

Standing in front of the jury box with a tail-wagging, yawning Rita on a table, Merck testified that this dog was almost precisely the same size as the puppy found in the oven in the community center of Englewood Manor Apartments last August.

State's exhibit 109 wriggled and squirmed as Merck tried to clamp her hand over the puppy's mouth, then to muzzle her or hogtie her paws with gauze.

"You want to see what she's doing? You see what she's doing? She's biting. As soon as—even if I don't tie her up, holding and restraining, that's the first thing they'll do is they'll bite," Merck said, trying unsuccessfully to control the puppy. She added that if she continued her efforts to subdue the dog, the pup was easily capable of struggling much harder and would begin crying.

Merck said she could not tell whether the dead puppy had been muzzled or had her paws bound with tape first.

"If the muzzling came first," asked prosecutor Laura Janssen, "then would it be easy for you to do the hogtying of the puppy?"

"It would get her to stop biting, but she would struggle more with her front paws, trying to get the muzzle off," said Merck.

Merck is the vet who did the necropsy of the dead puppy. She detailed some photographs of the dog for jurors, which showed the blackened fur still covered in beige paint. She said when she parted the dog's fur, she found that it was brown with flecks of white.

Merck's testimony is not finished, but prosecutors are expected to rest after she leaves the stand Wednesday. The defense is expected to call at least one witness: the defendants' sister, who was seen in the hallway waiting her turn to be summoned to the stand. It was at her apartment the brothers were arrested in August.

Meanwhile, earlier testimony Tuesday about forensic evidence seemed to distance the two suspects from the crime. A GBI crime lab microanalyst testified about her comparisons of evidence collected at the scene and seized from the Englewood Manor apartment where the brothers visited their sister.

Mary Horton testified that duct tape taken from the puppy and duct tape found in the apartment were similar, but testing could not definitively determine that they were from the same roll. Also, she analyzed paint from the vandalized community center and paint from the teens' clothing. They were not a match.

Closing arguments could come as early as Wednesday afternoon.

Wednesday, 13 December 2006