Before court adjourned for the day this afternoon, jurors heard from several police officers who described finding Morva in a thicket off the Huckleberry Trail and taking him into custody.
The brush -- next to Virginia Tech's rugby fields -- was so thick that more than a half dozen officers walked almost shoulder-to-shoulder in a straight line across the field to try to make sure no area was left without being searched.
Blacksburg police Officer Ryan Hite first noticed Morva."I saw something white at ground level" 10 to 15 feet away, Hite testified. He took a few steps in that direction and made eye contact with Morva.
"When I first saw him he was looking at me," Hite said. Morva sighed, he said.
Hite and Blacksburg police Officer Brian Cross yelled at Morva to put his hands where they could see them.
They each grabbed a hand and pulled Morva out of the ditch he'd been lying in, rolled him onto his stomach and handcuffed him. Hite said he asked Morva where the gun was and Morva answered "I don't know; I threw it." When he asked where he'd thrown it, Morva answered "Somewhere close."
Morva nodded as Hite testified. He had shaken his head earlier when another officer testified that she heard Morva say he had the gun.
A Virginia State Police special agent testified that he processed the scene where Sutphin was killed. Found nearby, he said, were a pair of old Adidas tennis shoes, dish towels, a first-aid kit and a roll of toilet paper. Except for the shoes, all of the items were bagged together, he said.
He pulled all of those items out of evidence bags to show the jury.
He also pulled out items he said he had collected from the coroner's office: Sutphin's bloody shirts and bulletproof vest, his cellphone, watch, notepad and some change. Sutphin, he said, also carried a printout with pictures of Morva, the man he had been looking for.
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