Testimony at the murder trial of Jean Jacques has left little doubt that Casey Chadwick, whose body was found in a closet in her apartment at 16 Spaulding St. in Norwich on June 15, 2015, died a violent death.

Chadwick, 25, had multiple stab wounds to the head and neck, including one that pierced both her jugular vein and carotid artery, according to a medical examiner’s testimony. She had what appeared to be a defense wound on her hand, and family members said Chadwick, who was feisty, would never surrender without a fight.

Yet nobody reported hearing a struggle, and the crime scene had considerably less blood than Chadwick’s injuries would suggest.

Jacques, 41, has pleaded not guilty to fatally stabbing Chadwick and is on trial in New London Superior Court. His attorney, Sebastian O. DeSantis, who has suggested that Chadwick’s body may have been moved, or that she was killed by somebody else, began calling witnesses Wednesday after prosecutor David J. Smith rested on behalf the state.

Jennifer Scherp, who lives on the third floor of the Spaulding Street home and describes herself as a “light sleeper” living in an apartment with “paper-thin walls,” testified that she didn’t hear anything from Chadwick’s second-floor apartment that night, not even the sound of Chadwick’s pit bull, Jet, barking.

Under cross examination, she admitted she was using a fan in her bedroom. She said she learned of Chadwick’s death the next day, as she headed out for work and heard Chadwick’s boyfriend, Jean Joseph, screaming hysterically after finding the body. She said she didn’t hear his screaming until she was halfway down the stairs.

To the surprise of Chadwick’s family and best friend, Crysta Hydra, Scherp testified she saw Hydra outside of Chadwick’s apartment about 9 p.m. on the night of June 14. Hydra had testified earlier in the trial that she wasn’t with Chadwick that night, but was texting back and forth with her until 12:40 a.m. the next morning. After court adjourned, Hydra, who has been watching the trial since she testified, reiterated in the hallway that she had not been at the Spaulding Street apartment that night.

Scherp said she initially thought that Hydra was Chadwick, whom she didn’t know, and had told police she had seen “Casey” go to her car and return to the apartment. Scherp said that two days later, after seeing Facebook posts and photographs related to the homicide, she realized it was Hydra she had seen and called back the detective who had interviewed her.

“He told me he didn’t really need my information, he had already caught the person,” she testified.

DeSantis said the state had failed to turn over to the defense the “extremely important” exculpatory information about Scherp, and that with help of his investigator, he got it “by the skin of his teeth.”

“This is an ongoing issue in this case,” DeSantis said.

Smith said that there has been nothing exculpatory that has not been turned over to the defense.

DeSantis noted how little blood was found in the apartment, even though the medical examiner had testified that due to the nature of her injuries, Chadwick would have lost about a gallon of blood. Police said the apartment smelled as if it had been cleaned and that they found a mop and bleach at the scene. Jacques’ DNA was not found on the mop handle.

DeSantis recalled to the witness stand Tywan Jenkins, a jailhouse informant who had testified that Jacques admitted to killing Chadwick when they were housed together last summer at the Corrigan-Radgowski Correctional Institution. DeSantis asked Jenkins about each of his eight pending criminal cases, including a charge of second-degree burglary, which is a felony. Jenkins, who sat back in the witness stand so that only the top of his head was visible from Jacques’ side of the courtroom, insisted he had not been promised anything in exchange for his testimony.

DeSantis is expected to wrap up the defense case Thursday. The prosecution will have the option of calling rebuttal witnesses before both attorneys deliver closing arguments.

k.florin@theday.com