SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of a man who killed a Salt Lake woman for $200 in drug money more than 10 years ago.
Michael Jones was sentenced to up to life in prison in 2010 after he was found guilty of murdering Tara Brennan, a 28-year-old honors graduate from Stanford who was attending law school.
Prosecutors say DNA evidence found under Brennan's fingernails matched Jones' DNA discovered on a cigarette in her car.
Jones' lawyers argued that other DNA also was found on the cigarette that could have belonged to other people Brennan knew at the time of the 2004 killing.
But the high court ruled Friday that the evidence was reliable enough to be admitted at the trial and unanimously upheld Jones' conviction.
— Associated Press