Prosecutor: No ‘logical reason’ other than burglary for defendant's prints on watch box

CEDAR RAPIDS - First Assistant Linn County attorney Nick Maybanks said Tuesday during his opening statement that evidence presented this week, including a latent fingerprint, will show Aaron L. Ray burglarized a Cedar Rapids home in 2013.

'There's no logical reason why the defendant's print is on a watch box,” Maybanks said. 'Police asked the defendant if he had ever been in the home or was he there that night. He said no, and in fact he said he had never been in that neighborhood.”

Maybanks said when Ray was confronted about the fingerprint, he never claimed it wasn't possible or offered another explanation. He only asked, 'Then why am I not under arrest?”

Ray, 21, of Cedar Rapids, is on trial this week for first-degree burglary and trafficking in stolen weapons in Linn County District Court. According to the criminal complaint, he is accused of burglarizing the home of Martin Ennor at 513 Memorial Dr. SE, while he and his family are present and taking firearms from the home on the night of Nov. 19 or early Nov. 20, 2013.

The trial started Monday with jury selection, and testimony got underway Tuesday. The trial is slated to wrap up later today (Wednesday).

In his opening statement, Tyler Johnston, Ray's attorney, said there is no evidence in this case to convict his client. He said there's no evidence that Ray went into the home, and that Maybanks left out the fact that the watch box was found outside the home in the yard. 'Who knows how long it was there?” he asked.

Johnston also pointed out the fact that the fitness-type watch and heart rate monitor band was still in the box.

Johnston said Ray denied he burglarized the home in 'every way, every time” investigators asked him. 

Ennor, 29, now of Coggon, testified he and his wife and two children ages 2 and 8, went to bed about 9 p.m. Nov. 19, 2013. His wife turned on a fan and a television, which is a usual practice, and he didn't know they had been burglarized until he got up about 5:45 a.m. the next day.

He found the side door of the house wide open and then found a door of his Jeep Cherokee open. One of the vehicle's doors had been damaged and the lock didn't always latch, he said.

The decorated war veteran who was medically discharged for injuries received during a 2012 deployment to Afghanistan said a shotgun and combat knife that he kept in the vehicle were missing, along with a .22 rifle from the basement.

The basement was in shambles, Ennor said. Boxes were taken out of a storage closet, along with the missing rifle, and there was even a duck taken out of the freezer and thrown on the floor. The fitness watch, which was left on the fireplace mantle in the original box was missing but he found it, along with one of his hunting bags, out in the yard near his neighbor's.

Maybanks, attempting to eliminate the possibility of Ray touching the watch box at the store where Ennor purchased it six months before, asked Ennor if the watch was on display or packaged at the store.

Ennor said it was kept in a locked case and the one he bought wasn't a display. He said the box was sealed with shrink-wrap and hadn't been opened. Ennor said there's no reason other than the burglary the box would be outside his house that day.

Ron Johnson, Cedar Rapids Police identification officer and certified latent print examiner, testified he was able to get a latent print on the inside of the watch box, which matched Ray's right middle finger.