Federal prosecutors say James McDaniel preyed on students at Southern Methodist University, selling them drugs and taking them on "roller coasters" of uppers then downers, cocaine then oxycodone.
This, prosecutors say, is what caused the death of 21-year-old Meaghan Bosch in 2007, before her body was found abandoned in a portable toilet.
But during opening statements Wednesday, McDaniel's attorney outlined a different theory of the events that led to her death.
"You will indeed hear evidence about a tragedy involving this young lady," defense attorney Thomas Mills Jr. told the jury. But he said it was not his client's drugs that killed Bosch and that his client was not with her when she died.
Showing jurors a map of Texas, Mills said that one of his client's neighbors drove the SMU student down to Hewitt, a small town near Waco, and that she spent time there alive before her body turned up in the portable toilet of a construction site.
"We have a witness that saw her alive in Hewitt after she was with Mr. McDaniel," the attorney said.
McDaniel, 48, has not been charged with the murder of Bosch, who had been missing for three days when her body was found on May 14, 2007.
Instead, authorities indicted him on federal charges, including providing the drugs to Bosch that caused her death. If convicted, he faces 20 years to life.
McDaniel has admitted going to dinner with Bosch at an On the Border restaurant but maintains that the last time he saw her was later at his duplex. He has said she was in the company of his neighbor.
Her death followed two other fatal overdoses by SMU students, prompting SMU officials to form a task force and create programs to deal with substance abuse on campus.
"Mr. McDaniel became the poster scapegoat to clear up all of these drug problems with SMU," his lawyer told jurors Wednesday.
But prosecutor Brandon McCarthy said that authorities have witnesses who say Bosch was in McDaniel's duplex as she lay dying - her breath rattling and her eyes rolling back - but that McDaniel refused to let anyone help her.
"You've got to take her to the hospital," one witness said, according to McCarthy.
"I don't have a story - what would I tell them?" the prosecutor said McDaniel replied.
And when the witness tried to take her, McDaniel pulled out a gun, according to the prosecutor.
"You ain't taking her anywhere," McDaniel was accused of saying.
