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Jury to resume deliberating in rape-murder trial

The fate of Rudolph Churchill, the South Jersey man who prosecutors say was linked by DNA - 25 years after the fact - to the 1989 rape and murder of two North Philadelphia women is now up to a jury of 12 Philadelphians.

The fate of Rudolph Churchill, the South Jersey man who prosecutors say was linked by DNA - 25 years after the fact - to the 1989 rape and murder of two North Philadelphia women is now up to a jury of 12 Philadelphians.

After 71/2 days of often-complex testimony about the science of DNA testing, closing arguments from the lawyers, and legal instructions by Common Pleas Court Judge Rose Marie DeFino-Nastasi, jurors spent about 90 minutes Friday reviewing the evidence before breaking for the weekend.

The jury of eight women and four men resumes deliberating Monday, trying to decide if Churchill's DNA, which police allege was on two items found near the bodies of Ruby Ellis and Cheryl Hanible, is enough to find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of first-degree murder, rape, and other sex crimes.

In her closing argument to the jury, defense attorney Gina Capuano said the DNA evidence linking Churchill was too tenuous and was compromised by other physical evidence, including rape kits done during the autopsies, that have been lost since the 1989 slayings.

"They are picking and choosing which evidence to test to use in this case. . . . Is this fair?" Capuano said.

"How can you say beyond a reasonable doubt when none of his alleged DNA is anywhere on these women's bodies?"

Assistant District Attorney Gwenn Cujdik, however, told the jury that "science does not lie."

Cujdik said the odds of Churchill's accidentally leaving his DNA where two women were raped and strangled were greater than "the odds of winning the Powerball and Mega Millions in one lifetime."

As throughout the trial, the closings were raptly followed by members of Hanible's family, some of whom wept as photos of her body were projected for the jury.

Two rows behind Churchill, his mother and sister maintained the courtroom vigil they began when he was arrested. Churchill, 54, was living with his mother in Paulsboro when police charged him with the two killings in March 2014.

Ellis, 19, was found dead March 17, 1989, in an abandoned car in a lot near 15th and Thompson Streets. On April 23, 1989, the body of Hanible, 33, was found in a burned-out abandoned bar in the 1200 block of West Girard Avenue. Both women were addicted to drugs and became prostitutes to feed their habits, authorities said.

In 2013, Philadelphia police, testing under a federal grant for DNA in cold-case homicides, came up with a match for Churchill in an FBI database.

At the time of the rapes and stranglings of Ellis and Hanible, Churchill lived in the 1300 block of Ridge Avenue in North Philadelphia, a few blocks from where both victims were found.

Churchill was never a suspect until analysts said his DNA - provided to a federal database in 2007 when he was released from a Georgia prison after serving three years for burglary - matched DNA on a bloody paper towel found in the car under Ellis' head and on Hanible's sneaker, from which the killer removed a lace to strangle her.

Although none of Churchill's DNA was found in or on either woman's body, Cujdik told the jury that the manner in which the bodies were left, and the knot used to strangle them, proved they were killed by the same person.

Cujdik said Churchill's "DNA was left behind in places that made sense."

"It's consistent to where the killer would have left his DNA," Cujdik added, and then pointed to Churchill: "We know it was you, and you can't hide anymore."

jslobodzian@phillynews.com

215-854-2985 @joeslobo

www.philly.com/crimeandpunishment