Prosecutor: 'Chili's passion was murder'

LANSING, Michigan (AP) -- A prosecutor told jurors Monday that a suspected serial killer's hobby was attacking women with household objects such as beer bottles and toilet lids.

Matthew Macon, also known as "Chili" by police, is charged in the August killings in Lansing of Sandra Eichorn, 64, and Karen Delgado-Yates, 41, and in an assault on Linda Chapel Jackson, 56.

"Chili's passion was murder," Assistant Prosecutor Catherine Emerson said during opening statements.

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.

Police have said Macon is a suspect in the slayings of five other women, but the 28-year-old hasn't been charged in those cases.

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 911.

In other testimony, Gerald Lehman said he discovered the body of Eichorn, his mother, inside her home August 27.

When Lehman arrived at his mother's house, he saw that her front door was closed -- not open as it usually was on a warm day -- and knew right away that something could be wrong. Lehman put his head in his hands on the stand and cried when describing how he found his lifeless mom lying in blood caused by stab wounds. E-mail to a friend

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