The State of Iowa concluded its murder case against Scott Swartz on Wednesday.

Swartz, 47, is accused of murdering his father, Paul Swartz, in January of 2023. On Jan. 7, the Marshalltown Police Department (MPD) was dispatched to the residence where Scott Swartz was living with his 78-year-old father and found Paul Swartz lying on the floor.

The police report indicated that Paul Swartz had head trauma, a broken hip, broken ribs and facial fractures caused by severe assault. He was taken to the UnityPoint Hospital in Marshalltown and later transferred to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City, where he died Jan. 22.

Testifying on Wednesday afternoon was Johnson County Medical Examiner and Assistant State Medical Examiner Dr. Dennis Firchau, who performed the autopsy on Paul Swartz. While being questioned by Assistant Iowa Attorney General Keisha Cretsinger, Firchau said the report was completed on April 19, 2023 and concluded that Paul Swartz died of complications caused by blunt force injuries in a matter determined to be a homicide.

Photos of Paul Swartz, who stood between 5’4″ and 5’6″ and weighed between 110 and 120 pounds at the time of his death, revealed visible injuries on his face and arms and contusions and bruising on the left side of his body when the evidence was presented in the courtroom on Wednesday. Firchau also found a laceration, bruising and contusions in Paul Swartz’s scalp that he believed to be caused by a blunt object. Paul Swartz also sustained a broken femur as a result of blunt force trauma.

Firchau acknowledged Paul Swartz’s underlying health conditions including heart disease, COPD, emphysema, atherosclerosis, high blood pressure and hypertension and testified that while the individual injuries in isolation may not have been enough to cause Paul Swartz’s death, the totality simply put too much physiological stress on his body to allow him to survive.

After a short recess at around 2 p.m., defense attorney Ted Fisher took his turn questioning Firchau and contended that Paul Swartz died a “death by a thousand cuts” without a single coup de grace that could be positively determined. He also focused on Paul Swartz’s pre-existing health conditions and noted that he had been hospitalized in Ames about a week before the alleged assault that ultimately resulted in his death.

Fisher said Paul Swartz was taking medication with a side effect of making skin more susceptible to bruises, and as he continued to question Firchau, the doctor said the underlying conditions were “severe” but not “imminently life threatening.” When the defense attorney suggested that the injuries could have been sustained in a fall or series of falls rather than as the result of an assault, Firchau responded that it would have to be “quite a convoluted fall” to produce such a constellation of injuries and that the distribution of the injuries was more consistent with an assault, in his view.

Earlier in the day, Iowa Division of Criminal Investigations (DCI) Criminalist Junmarie Soto testified she ran tests on a shotgun and swabs taken from the cheeks of both the father and the son. The shotgun was found at the crime scene and contained blood on the stock of the firearm.

Soto used the swabs to obtain DNA, and the blood matched the DNA of Paul Swartz. She said the odds of finding another person to match the test results was one in 1.1 octillion. Soto also swabbed the “rough areas” of the shotgun — parts of the firearm that are coarser or have ridges.

The DNA likely found on the rough areas is skin cells from a person’s hands, she said.

Soto told the court she found three DNA samples, with Scott Swartz contributing the largest amount. She said the probability of finding a different person contributing the same DNA was less than one out of 1.8 octillion.

Fisher asked Soto if DNA could be transferred to the shotgun if it had been set on a couch or rubbed on clothes. Soto told him it was possible for some of the DNA to be placed on an item as a result of such activity.

Also testifying was DCI Criminalist Branden Stepanski, who has a primary forensic focus of drug chemistry. The MPD sent him samples of a “crystalline substance” found at the Swartz crime scene, which tested positive for methamphetamine.

Fisher asked Stepanski how confident he was that the substance was meth, and Stepanski responded with 99 percent confidence.

After the state and the defense finished cross-examining Firchau, the state rested its case, and fellow defense attorney Aaron Siebrecht motioned for acquittal, arguing that the state had not met the burden of proof on several of the charges including first degree murder, possession of a firearm by a felon and possession of a firearm by a domestic abuse offender. On the murder count specifically, Siebrecht contended that Scott Swartz had only admitted to pushing his father twice, and therefore, premeditation could not be established.

Marshall County Attorney Jordan Gaffney responded that Scott Swartz had assaulted his father and told the police who arrived at the scene that he had obtained the gun in the house and used it to hit the victim while doing nothing to provide assistance or care for several hours.

Both the prosecution and Judge John Haney noted that three of the charges Siebrecht referenced — willful injury, first degree harassment and domestic abuse second offense — had already been dismissed by the court, and Haney did not rule on the other motions but said he would take them under advisement.

The trial will resume on Friday morning at 9 a.m. inside the Marshall County Courthouse.