1977 murder case goes to trial

It's been 33 years since Mark Shemukenas was brutally murdered and mutilated in his tiny apartment in St. Paul's Hamline-Midway neighborhood. On Wednesday, a man accused of killing him went on trial in Ramsey County District Court.

In a short opening statement, prosecutor Richard Dusterhoft laid out the basic facts of the case in which 60-year-old Richard Hubert Ireland Jr. has been charged:

Police were called on May 11, 1977, by the landlord of a building in the 1900 block of Chelton Avenue, near Prior and Minnehaha Avenues. Inside, the body of Shemukenas, 30, was found in the combination living room/bedroom.

The victim was naked, his hands tied behind his back with an electrical cord. On the bed, officers found a large amount of blood, scissors, tape and other evidence.

The case went nowhere until 1983, when a fingerprint found on a metal kitchen cabinet was found to match Ireland's. His fingerprints had been put into the system a year earlier when he was convicted of criminal sexual conduct.

But Ireland said he didn't know Shemukenas and hadn't been to his apartment.

Cold case reopened

Defense attorney Lili Graham, however, told jurors that the case isn't nearly as simple as the prosecutor made it sound. Have you ever read a book with intricate plot lines and complex characters only to see it dumbed down when it's made into a movie, she asked.

"That's what happened here," Graham said.

Many pieces of evidence were found in Shemukenas' apartment, including the scissors and five knives, she said.

Only one fingerprint out of 24 examined matched Ireland's, she said, and that one was in the kitchen. A scientist will testify, Graham said, that the DNA on the scissors was a mixture, not a 100 percent match to Ireland's.

Police neglected to follow up on numerous leads, including that of a serial killer who was on parole at the time Shemukenas was killed, the attorney said.

Witness testimony in the case will begin Thursday. The trial before District Judge James Clark Jr. is expected to last about three weeks.