MONROE COUNTY, MI (WTOL) - Daniel Clay took the stand Monday in the second week of the murder trial against him.
Clay is accused of viciously murdering 22-year-old Chelsea Bruck after a Halloween party in October 2014.
The jurors watched hours of interrogation interviews between Clay and the detectives during the first week; this week looks to be more of the same.
The jury watched another two-hour interrogation video Monday morning.
The prosecution called Detective Jeff Pauli to the stand to testify about his interview with Clay.
In this video, detectives kept asking Clay how Chelsea Bruck ended up laying naked under a pile of branches and how her face was so brutally fractured.
Clay repeatedly denied knowing what happened until finally admitting that he concealed her body after he said Bruck stopped breathing during rough sex.
The detectives then told Clay the cause of Bruck's death was blunt force trauma to the head.
Clay said he did not remember hitting her that hard, but said that does not mean he did not do it.
"I would never hurt someone like that on purpose. I had to have done it obviously. I do not know how I did it or what I used to do it. I can get the ones under her eyes maybe or something from trying to hit her when I was trying to wake her up. I could have been hitting her, I could've. I don't remember, sir," Clay said in the video.
Although Clay was very emotional in the interrogation video, he remained very calm in court Monday.
The family and friends of Chelsea Bruck who filled the benches in the courtroom got emotional during the video as well.
Clay took the stand following the interrogation video.
He admitted to causing Chelsea Bruck's death, but denied his intention was to kill Bruck. He admitted to lying to detectives during his interrogation about his involvement with Bruck's death.
"I didn't mean for her to die," Clay said on the stand. "I didn't mean for this to end like this. Just not my intent - to have a good time."
He also said her fractures came from a car door shutting on her head when he tried to get her back in the car. He said she was already dead at that point.
Clay says he does feel remorse for what happened that night in 2014.
"Everyday I think about this and I regret what happened," Clay said on the stand. "Something I have to live with. Something her family has to live with. I never wanted to put someone through something like this. I never had domestic violence, I never hit a woman, I never done anything like this in my life. It's not something I chose to do."
Both the defense and prosecution rested their cases Monday.
The defense filed a motion to drop the murder charge against Clay, citing her death was accidentally caused during sex.
With the jury out of the courtroom, both the prosecution and defense met with the judge to discuss the motion.
During that meeting, which was on the record, the judge said he had seen enough evidence presented in the trial to keep the felony murder charge against Clay. He based that on the amount of time allegedly Clay had with the body after death and that the sex was allegedly not consensual.
The judge will instruct the jury following closing arguments as to which charges, if any, they can convict Clay. Closing arguments begin Tuesday morning.
