GRUNDY CENTER - Jury was seated late Wednesday afternoon in the murder trial of Michelle Kehoe in Grundy County District Court.

Opening statements will be 9 a.m. Thursday with testimony following.

There are 12 jurors and three alternates for the trial.

Some of the significant decisions setting up the trial actually came last August.

That's when Kehoe's attorney argued many people in Buchanan County were so familiar with the case...or had opinions... the Coralville woman couldn't get a fair.

The judge even allowed the unusual step of calling a "mock jury" to consider pre-trial publicity. He later ruled the trial would move to Grundy Center.

The prosecution should present a fairly straight forward case, detailing how Michelle Kehoe was driving the family's minivan with the children inside when she went missing. Authorities found Kehoe and her children with knife cuts to the throat. That wound killed the youngest child.

The defense has indicated it will claim insanity. One University of Iowa Psychologist...not connected with the case, say the defense will probably try to get jurors to understand Kehoe's thinking.

"Imagine yourself in a situation where you would actually do that...try to imagine how she understood the world...maybe the defense will take the jury through that intellectual exercise," said Dr. Michael O'Hara, UI Clinical Psychologist.

The psychologist says the defense might claim postpartum depression or present evidence that Michelle Kehoe was prone to delusions.

That we won't know for sure until the defense begins later in the trial.