Judge to rule on motions in Reno murder case

Reno " The Reno man accused of raping and killing a young woman and sexually assaulting two other college coeds told his boss he wanted to leave for a new job in Washington state the same day the murder victim's body was found last year, a prosecutor said Friday.

Washoe County Deputy District Attorney Elliott Sattler made the disclosure during a hearing on defense motions to separate James Michael Biela's murder trial from the two sexual assault cases.

Biela, 27, is charged with murder, kidnapping and three counts of sexual assault. The former pipefitter faces a possible death penalty if convicted of sexually assaulting and killing Brianna Denison, 19, who disappeared in January 2008 while sleeping on a friend's couch. Her body was found about three weeks later.

Biela also is accused of sexually assaulting a woman in a parking garage in October 2007 and kidnapping and raping another woman two months later.

Based partly on DNA evidence, he was arrested in November 2008. Trial is set for Feb. 22, 2010.

The prosecution wants all three cases tied together, saying each attack by what police have described as a "serial rapist" occurred within a 400-yard radius north of the downtown casino district near the campus of the University of Nevada, Reno.

"What we have here is a man who basically is a predator," Sattler said. "A man who conducted sexually-motivated, sneak attacks on small, unsuspecting women at UNR who are unable to defend themselves."

Public defenders representing Biela argue that tying all three cases together could prejudice jurors against Biela by allowing them to consider unrelated evidence from the other attacks.

Judge Robert Perry said he intends to rule early next week.

Wearing handcuffs, leg shackles and a bulletproof vest, Biela briefly smiled at a newspaper photographer when he entered court Friday.

In an effort to prove Biela had a guilty conscience about the attacks, Sattler disclosed the prosecution has two witnesses prepared to testify that Biela fled the area after Denison's body was found in a vacant field near a business park.

The day Denison's body was found, he went to his employer and said he wanted to leave, Sattler said.

"If that is not consciousness of guilt, I don't know what is," he said.

Public defender Jay Slocum said that under Nevada law Biela is entitled to three separate trials unless the prosecution can prove the set of facts in each case is closely connected and part of a common scheme or plan. He said that while the attacks were only blocks a part they were in "discrete and separate places."

One of the sexual assault victims was taken from the parking lot to another location miles away before she and the assailant performed oral sex on each other and he brought her back to the original location, Slocum said. In that case, no weapon was used.

In the other case, the assailant raped the victim at gunpoint in the parking garage, he said.

"The difference is pretty marked," Slocum said. "Evidence in one case may be stronger than in another, but the jury may accumulate all evidence in all the cases and attempt to piggyback the evidence to convict him in all the cases."

Sattler said two of the attacks were "literally across the street from each other."

"You could throw a rock from one to the other," he said. "It's like arguing the Columbine killings took place in discrete locations because they did not all happen in the same classroom. ... It is absurd."