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Bashara Trial: GPP Police Captain Admits To Making Mistake, Defense Rests Case

DETROIT (CBS Detroit) - All the witnesses have now testified in the Bob Bashara murder trial -- and the defense has rested its case.

On the final day of testimony, officers from the Grosse Pointe Park Police Department took the stand reports WWJ's Marie Osborne.

In his nearly three decade career with the department, Captain David Loch said he's never investigated a murder.

Defense attorney Michael McCarthy attempted to show the jury that inexperience led to failures in the Jane Bashara murder investigation.

One of the issues raised is that prosecutors tried to show a leaf material found on Jane's socks could have matched the leaves found in the Bashara garage - the perceived murder site.

Frank Telewski with the Michigan State University Department of Plant Biology reported to Loch that was not the case.

"Professor Telewski says there's no match between that stuff on the socks and the stuff on the garage floor - right?" asked the defense attorney.

"Correct, they are from different trees," said Loch.

Questioned further, it was found that the material was tested and no match was found.

"I made a terrible mistake in not turning that over to the prosecution team (on) a timely manner," Loch testified.

It was revealed that Loch held on to the leaf report for days before turning it over to prosecutors saying that he dropped the ball.

Closing arguments will take place Tuesday, and jury deliberations will begin on Wednesday.

Bob Bashara is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy and solicitation of murder in the 2012 death of his wife, Jane. Authorities say she was beaten and strangled in the couple's home and before her body was left inside her SUV in a Detroit alley.

Joseph Gentz, a handyman who confessed he killed Jane Bashara under Bob Bashara's orders, is in prison for second-degree murder.

In the trial, Bashara maintains his innocence, though handyman Joe Gentz pleaded guilty and was sentenced to up to 28 years in prison for killing Jane Bashara. Gentz was allegedly approached by Bashara to be the hit man who killed his wife.

Jane Bashara, the 56-year-old Grosse Pointe mother of two, and a DTE marketing executive, was found strangled to death in the back of her Mercedes-Benz SUV in a Detroit alley on January 25, 2012.

After Jane's body was discovered, Gentz turned himself in to police.

Bob Bashara pleaded guilty to solicitation of murder for trying to hire a hitman to kill Joseph Gentz, the handyman found guilty of killing Jane Bashara.

Prosecutors allege Bashara wanted his wife out of the way so he could carry on a BDSM (bondage, discipline and sadomasochism) relationship with two women. Bashara was allegedly the owner of a sex dungeon who held elaborate master-slave parties with others in the same lifestyle.

[Continuing Coverage: Bashara Murder Trial]

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