Washington County prosecutors hope that a cigarette butt and a plain white envelope will convince a jury to convict Mark Matthew Fisher of participating in a home invasion in 2003 that left an 89-year-old Venetia woman dead.

On Tuesday, the jury heard testimony from two state police forensic investigators who tested items that were collected at the home of Shannon and Freda Dale on or shortly after they were attacked on Jan. 29, 2003.

Both husband and wife were bound and gagged with duct tape. Shannon Dale, 90, was severely beaten but survived the attack. His wife, however, suffered a heart attack and died laying on the hallway in her home.

Fisher, 24, of Texarkana, Ark., was arrested in November 2006 after DNA from a cigarette but found outside the Dale home six days after the attack was traced back to him through a national system.

Read more in Thursday's Observer-Reporter.

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