A prosecutor told jurors that a suspected serial killer's hobby was attacking women and he improvised when choosing his weapons, selecting household objects such as beer bottles and toilet lids.
Matthew Macon, also known as "Chili" by police, is charged in the killings last August of Sandra Eichorn, 64, and Karen Delgado-Yates, 41, and the assault on Linda Chapel Jackson, 56.
"Chili's passion was murder," Assistant Prosecutor Catherine Emerson said during opening statements on Monday.
Macon's attorney, however, said Macon's brother is responsible for Eichorn's death and the attack on Jackson.
"They resemble each other," Mike O'Briant said, adding that Macon and his brother shared clothing, shoes and work gloves.
O'Briant said another man killed Delgado-Yates because he thought she had named him as a suspect in a different slaying.
Police have said Macon is a suspect in the slayings of five other women, but the 28-year-old has not been charged in those cases.
That's telling, said Clifton Jackson, a cousin who has been speaking for the Macon family.
"The media has been used to facilitate the trial," he said.
When asked about new allegations that Macon's brother, Melvin Hobbs, is the culprit for some of the crimes, Jackson said "we should just wait and see what all comes out."
Jackson said he isn't sure how to reach Hobbs, and O'Briant said after the trial adjourned for the day that he thought Hobbs is in jail. There was no telephone listing for a Melvin Hobbs in the Lansing area.
Macon's family has questioned whether he can get a fair trial in Lansing. City residents were alarmed last summer when five women were killed in a month.
In court Monday, Jackson identified Macon as her assailant. She said she felt uncertain at first when police showed him in a lineup with five other men.
"I thought that it looked like him," Jackson said as testimony got under way. "I kept looking at him. I had to think about it a little bit. ... I just felt he knew who was behind the glass. There was an intensity from him. I felt a connection. I felt it down to my toes. I just knew it."
The defense noted that Macon was the only one in the lineup wearing a white T-shirt matching the description provided by Jackson when she called police.
