photo by: Richard Gwin

Shaun Arnold, of the Shawnee Police Department, and his dog Gio work the crime scene Tuesday, May 26, 2015, of a fatal stabbing at 700 Arkansas St.

Jurors heard from a police detective and a medical examiner Thursday, as the prosecution rested its case in the jury trial of Joshaua Back, who is accused of second-degree murder.

Back’s defense also rested its case without calling a witness, and without Back testifying.

Back, 34, of Oskaloosa, faces both felony second-degree murder and theft charges. His trial began Monday.

photo by: Richard Gwin

Joshaua Lee Back

In the early morning hours of May 25, 2015, police say Back stabbed 45-year-old Tracy Dean Lautenschlager in the neck outside a home at 700 Arkansas St. and fled in a stolen truck.

Lautenschlager was found bleeding in the parking lot of a nearby McDonald’s restaurant at 1309 W. Sixth St. He was transported to Lawrence Memorial Hospital, but was declared dead soon after.

Back was arrested in Leavenworth County on May 27, 2015.

Thursday, jurors heard testimony from Lawrence Police Detective John Hanson who interviewed Back after his arrest. Wednesday, jurors watched nearly three hours of video excerpts from that interview.

Hanson on Thursday told jurors Back admitted he planned earlier that morning to steal the truck to use as collateral for money owed to him as a part of a drug debt.

Throughout the evening of May 24 and into the morning of May 25, 2015, Back told Hanson that he and several others travelled back and forth between the Arkansas Street home and another home at 3009 Steven Drive. Back said he was looking for some of his lost belongings.

Approaching 6 a.m. on May 25, Back was unable to find what he was looking for and returned to the Arkansas Street home to steal the truck, he told Hanson in the interview.

Outside the home Back said he was confronted by Lautenschlager and another unidentified man.

Hanson told jurors police never precisely determined what the confrontation was about, but that Back told him “it was over the truck, the dope, whatever.”

When confronted, Back told Hanson he pulled a knife from his waist band, swung the weapon toward Lautenschlager and ran.

Prosecuting Attorney Amy McGowan showed jurors Lautenschlager’s autopsy photos while Douglas County Coroner, Dr. Erik Mitchell, explained his findings.

The cause of Lautenschlager’s death was blood loss, while the manner of his death was homicide, Mitchell said.

Intoxication levels of both methamphetamine and marijuana were detected in Lautenschlager’s bodily fluids, Mitchell said.

“This means the concentration is high enough that there is a pharmacological effect,” he said. “The methamphetamine is pretty high and very definitely has an effect. The marijuana was also pretty high.”

Examining close-up autopsy photos of Lautenschlager’s neck, Mitchell told jurors the wound was 6 inches long, spanning from back to front on his right side.

Mitchell said a ‘sharp object’ caused Lautenschlager’s injury, but could not specify further.

The wound consisted of an area where the sharp object penetrated the skin and sliced outward, Mitchell said. In all, the object cut through Lautenschlager’s external jugular vein and the front wall of his internal jugular vein, he said.

Mitchell said the wound is “simplest to explain with a single motion.”

Back’s defense previously has argued that Back acted in self-defense when he lashed out at Lautenschlager.

After swinging the knife, Hanson said Back ran east on Seventh Street for several blocks before circling south on Alabama, west on Eighth Street and back to the truck, which he broke into and drove out of Lawrence and back to Oskaloosa.

The clothes Back was wearing that morning and the knife he said he swung at Lautenschlager were never found, Hanson said.

Police recovered the stolen truck outside a Bio-Foods plant in Jefferson County on May 26, 2015.

Several other detectives testified on Thursday about Back’s whereabouts between May 24 and 25 using local store cameras and credit card receipts.

Right around 6 a.m., and minutes before Lautenschlager suffered the wound that would kill him, he and Back were caught on camera at the Zarco 66 gas station at 2005 W. 9th St., said Lawrence Police Detective Dean Brown.

At the convenience store Lautenschlager bought $4 worth of gas for his white SUV and the two drove away, heading east, Brown said.

Back’s trial will continue at 9 a.m. Friday when prosecuting and defending attorneys will offer closing statements before the jury begins deliberating.