Jury gets VanCallis trial, deliberations to continue Monday

MACOMB COUNTY, Mich. (WJBK) - Jury deliberations will continue on Monday in the April Millsap murder trial after the defense and prosecutors wrapped up their closings statements on Friday.

Prosecutors claim James VanCallis killed Millsap and left her body along the popular Macomb-Orchard Trail. But the defense argues the evidence just isn't there. Friday morning, the jury listened to the impassioned plea of the prosecution. Laying out the circumstantial evidence revolving around cell phone tracking and eye witnesses. The problem according to the defense, however, is there was no DNA evidence that linked VanCallis to Millsap.

"This time he grabbed the helmet and he hits her on top of the head," Prosecutor William Cataldo demonstrated that action by slamming it on the table on Friday. "There were people on that path that had to see him, He had to silence her!"

He had other re-enactments as well, demonstrating the day the 14-year-old Armada girl was killed in July 2014.

"What chance did April Millsap have as a small 14-year-old girl on an isolated stretch of the Orchard Lake Trial when she rejected his advances and told him no? It earned her being stomped to death," Cataldo said.

Then it was the defense's turn who pleaded with the jury not to be swayed by passion.

"Show us some evidence that's why we're here, this is a court of law," Azhar Sheikh said.

The prosecution says the killer covered his tracks well.

"You destroyed all the evidence. When you come home after stomping some young girl to death with your shoes. (Then you) cleaned it with hand sanitizer," Cataldo said, but insisted that the lack of DNA doesn't matter. "No DNA? We just let people go?"

VanCallis' attorney equates this trial to a witch hunt.

"I don't think they have confidence in their own lack of evidence," Sheikh said.

At about 12:30 p.m., the 12 men and women got their first chance to discuss all the evidence they've over the past two weeks and decide whether VanCallis is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Later in the day, it was announced that jury would continue deliberations on Monday.