It was self-defense, the defendant said.  The defendant said the victim threatened rape with a 7-inch dagger in his hand.  So the defendant took hold of the weapon and stabbed the victim 61 times.  The medical examiner testified as to the victim’s injuries:

Ponni Arunkumar, a Cook County assistant medical examiner, described to the jury the 61 stab wounds the 38-year-old Hauser sustained.

She also noted significant injury to Hauser’s jugular vein, lungs, liver, pancreas, renal artery, kidneys, spine and abdominal aorta, which is one of the main blood suppliers in the body. Arunkumar testified that any of these injuries could have caused death.

They found the defendant’s fingerprints on the weapon.  The victim’s fingerprints were not found.  There was no sign of a struggle.  Two wine glasses sitting on a nearby table were undisturbed.

And now Joseph Biedermann has been found not guilty.

He was just defending himself from an unwanted advance.  This is sometimes call the “gay panic” defense.  His attorney said that he was innocent.  Send the boy home to his mother, he said.  (The “boy” is 30 years old.)