Upturned kudzu led searchers to the body of Jennifer Ewing, who was ambushed and killed while biking the popular Silver Comet Trail in 2006, according to testimony Tuesday.
Paulding County sheriff's Deputy Jared Wall testified he had been called to a remote area about 70 feet off the trail to join an intensified search for the 53-year-old cyclist after her discarded biking shorts were found in the brush.
Her accused killer, Michael Ledford of Dallas, is on trial on charges he murdered Ewing, sexually assaulted her and then beat her so badly she suffocated because her chest was crushed.
Wall said he focused on one area because several of the kudzu leaves had been disturbed, their white undersides standing out on the right-sided green leaves.
"I could see a spot of red underneath," Walls said, adding that is what prompted him to look closer.
He then saw the legs of the Sandy Springs woman, who had been missing since the previous afternoon, July 25, 2006.
Ledford, 46, came to the attention of police later that day when his mother and brother reported he had come home with blood on the front of his pants. The defendant told his mother the blood was from an injury he received when a prostitute bit him because he told her he could not pay her $40 for oral sex.
Through their questions to Walls and to the next witness, GBI agent Wesley Horne, Ledford's lawyers attempted to raise questions about the evidence retrieved from the crime scene.
Ewing's body was found the morning after her family called police when she did not come home from her regular 50-mile bike ride on the trail.
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