FARGO - A medical examiner's testimony and the question of where Dru Sjodin died are coming into focus as a second week of testimony begins in the trial of Alfonso Rodriguez Jr.

Rodriguez Jr., 53, of Crookston, Minn., has pleaded not guilty to a charge of kidnapping resulting the death of the University of North Dakota student. His attorneys say the charge should not have been brought in federal court.

Sjodin disappeared after leaving a Grand Forks shopping mall on Nov. 22, 2003, and her body was found the following April in a ravine near Crookston. To convict Rodriguez under federal kidnapping guidelines, prosecutors must show the 22-year-old Sjodin was still alive before being transported in a vehicle, said David Lillehaug, a former U.S. attorney from Minnesota.

Rodriguez attorneys have suggested Sjodin died in the mall parking lot within minutes after she was abducted.

The answer to the question of where she died is a key in the case, Lillehaug said.

"If there's any forensic evidence that she struggled or was in distress after she was put in his car, that part of the trial is over," he said Friday.

Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty if Rodriguez is convicted.

Dr. Michael McGee, a forensic scientist from St. Paul, Minn., wrote in his autopsy report that it's unlikely Sjodin died in the Columbia Mall parking lot. It's more conceivable her wounds were inflicted at the ravine where her body was found, he said.

"Blood patterns and quantities on the victim's clothing and in the defendant's car are inconsistent with these injuries having been inflicted prior to transport from another location," McGee said.

McGee said that bruises on Sjodin's right forearm indicate a defensive injury sustained before her death. She died of suffocation, a wound to her neck, or "exposure in combination with the injuries and conditions inflicted on her by her killer," McGee said.

Before McGee testifies, a hearing will be held to determine his credibility. That likely will happen on Wednesday or Thursday, U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson said.

Defense attorney Robert Hoy declined to comment when contacted on Friday.

Prosecutors cruised through 35 witnesses last week, with Hoy raising few objections and asking limited questions. Court hearings ended early on three of four days.

"The defense strategy appears designed not to offend any juror in anticipation of the death penalty phase," Lillehaug said. "The defense has outlined a technical argument on the time of death, and hopes that it can pick up at least one juror on that argument.

"But if it fails, it's not likely any juror will be offended," he said.

Prosecutors played audio tapes of police interviews with Rodriguez four days after Sjodin disappeared and five days before he was arrested for kidnapping. Rodriguez said he went to a movie at a Grand Forks theater and ate at an East Grand Forks McDonald's - but that particular movie wasn't showing and he didn't appear on the restaurant's surveillance tape.

Rodriguez told police he went to Grand Forks nearly every weekend, often times with his mother, Dolores. On that day, a neighbor testified, Dolores became worried when her son wasn't home by early evening.

The government also showed a composite tape with two videos, one of Rodriguez in a SuperTarget store near the mall that afternoon. He was in the store for about 29 minutes, spending 11 minutes sitting on a bench. He left at 3:52 p.m.

The other video showed Sjodin shopping at a Marshall Field's store in the mall. She left at 5 p.m., the same time her boyfriend, Chris Lang, testified that she called him on a cell phone. That call ended abruptly at 5:04.

The timeline after that is not clear, Hoy said in his opening statement.