Jury selection is scheduled to start in the criminal case of Ian Mitcham, who is accused of murdering a Scottsdale woman a decade ago.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — A decade after the murder of Allison Feldman, jury selection is set to begin Monday in the long-delayed murder trial that has drawn widespread attention in Scottsdale and Arizona.
Feldman, 31, was found beaten to death inside her Scottsdale home in February 2015. For three years, investigators had no suspect in the case, until they turned to new technology that Arizona authorities had never used before: familial DNA.
Investigators say they identified Ian Mitcham as the suspect after DNA evidence from the crime scene closely matched genetic material belonging to Mitcham’s brother, who was already in prison. Police later located a vial of Mitcham’s blood from a 2015 DUI arrest. A sample of that, according to reports, should have been destroyed years earlier.
Without obtaining a new warrant, Scottsdale police tested that blood and created Mitcham’s DNA profile, which they say matched evidence from the Feldman crime scene.
That decision sparked privacy and ethical debates that reached the Arizona Supreme Court, where justices ultimately upheld the use of the evidence.
The case has faced repeated delays over the years, including multiple judge recusals and procedural setbacks, leaving Feldman’s family waiting nearly a decade for a trial to begin.
Now, after years of legal challenges, jury selection is underway in Maricopa County Superior Court.
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