FARMINGTON -- Twenty-six years ago seemed almost as clear as yesterday as a prosecutor questioned investigators Wednesday who worked on the homicide of Judith L. Flagg.

A young mother, Flagg, 23, was found stabbed to death on the kitchen floor of her Fayette home Jan. 6, 1983.

No one was charged in the slaying until DNA tests on the evidence in 2006 implicated Thomas H. Mitchell, now 52, leading to his indictment on a murder charge.

Mitchell's jury trial enters its fourth day in Franklin County Superior Court today.

On Wednesday, the original investigators, many of them now retired, identified plastic-encased jeans, a stained red turtleneck and other clothes taken from Flagg's body, and the overalls and shirt taken from her 13-month-old son who was found, unhurt, with her body.

Ronald Eccles, director of the Maine State Crime Laboratory until 1984, described watching the medical examiner clip Flagg's fingernails and box them during the autopsy. He testified the physical evidence was shipped for processing to the FBI's crime lab in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 11, 1983, and returned April 12, 1983.

Former Maine State Police Detective Ronald Richards described casting three footprints found outside the home.

He identified a black-and-white photo of three investigators -- including himself -- making the sulfur casts in the snow.

The investigators described the techniques in response to questioning by the prosecutor, Deputy Attorney General William Stokes, and defense attorneys Greg Dorr and James Strong.

Mitchell's attorneys are challenging the chain of custody of the evidence in the case, claiming Mitchell's DNA could have gotten mixed in with material from Flagg's case.

Investigators questioned Mitchell and about 200 other people within weeks of the murder. But attention refocused on Mitchell after investigators looked again at the case more than two decades later.

Brandi Caron, a forensic chemist at the Maine State Police Laboratory, testified Wednesday that she retested the child's coveralls in January 2006 and found evidence of sperm cells on the front of the left leg.

A retired rural mail carrier also testified Wednesday about her close encounter with a driver on the day of the slaying.

Eloise Ault, of Wayne, was delivering mail along Watson Heights Road in Fayette, where the Flaggs lived. Just before noon on Jan. 6, 1983, on the crest of a hill on that road, and in a snow squall, Ault testified she narrowly avoided a head-on collision with an unfamiliar, two-door vehicle.

Authorities say the driver was Mitchell.

Ault reported the encounter the day after the homicide and worked with Richard Reitchel, a detective with the Maine State Police at the time, to prepare a composite sketch of the driver.

On the stand Wednesday, Ault described the near-accident and the driver who sped off.

"The driver was a young man, extremely neat, light brown hair in a boy cut," Ault said. "He had on a tan jacket, a gray wool scarf wrapped around his neck, crossed with the ends of scarf going into the lapel."

She told Strong she could not pinpoint the driver or the car among photo lineups presented by police weeks after the murder.

Strong said Mitchell and his car were pictured in those lineups.

Flagg died of multiple stab wounds, according to state Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Margaret Greenwald, who testified Tuesday.

Authorities say Flagg was orally raped and had wounds showing she fought off her attacker.

Stokes told jurors Tuesday that DNA evidence placed Mitchell at the crime scene.

The Flaggs' home had once been owned by Mitchell's father, and the younger Mitchell had been in the home at least once after the Flaggs bought it.

When Mitchell was indicted, he was in prison serving a sentence for kidnapping, gross sexual assault and attempted murder. He has been held in custody since.

More than two dozen people, including Flagg's parents and siblings, watched the testimony Wednesday, occasionally straining to hear over the noise of trucks traveling next to the courthouse on Route 27.

The jury trial is expected to continue through next week.

Betty Adams -- 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com