PONTIAC, Mich., July 6 (UPI) -- A California man goes on trial this week in Michigan charged with killing a young man more than a decade ago and dumping his body in a parking lot.
Robert Martin Nowak, 51, was linked to the case last year, the Detroit Free Press reported. He was charged with theft last year and, prosecutors say, his DNA matched evidence taken from the body of Troy Moross, who was found dead in Madison Heights, Mich., in 2001.
Nowak has links to the area, Oakland County prosecutors say. They plan to present evidence his father owned a business near where the body was dumped.
Moross, a resident of Madison Heights, was 26 when he was killed. He had been beaten and castrated.
Nowak's lawyers say there is no proof he was involved in the killing, suggesting the two men may have had sex. They plan to argue Moross may have gone to a house in Rochester Hills, Mich., where a sex ring allegedly performed voluntary castrations.
"We're not sure what may have happened here," lawyer Lawrence Kaluzny said. "But there is certainly no evidence that my client killed anybody."
The trial is scheduled to begin Thursday.
