By Molly Moorhead, Times Staff Writer
Friday, January 21, 2011
DADE CITY — As she was being choked and beaten in the bedroom of her Land O'Lakes apartment, Teresa Lodge fought back.
She scratched and clawed and kicked until her body fell unconscious and she lost the fight for her life, authorities say.
But before she died, Lodge, who was 46, managed to collect the key evidence that would seal the fate of her attacker. She held it under her fingernails.
More than a year after her death in September 2006, authorities charged Derral Wayne Hodgkins with her murder. His trial got under way Friday morning. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
The state's main evidence is fingernail scrapings from Lodge that were tested and matched positively to Hodgkins, 51.
"Teresa Lodge held the key to identify her attacker," Assistant State Attorney Glenn Martin told jurors in his opening ...