The prosecutors do not want the jury to hear the former New Jersey State Police officer's testimony.
NEW BRUNSWICK -- A defense expert called in the trial of Michelle Lodzinski, who is charged with the 1991 murder of her 5-year-old son, Timothy Wiltsey, told a judge Tuesday afternoon that there is no way to tell how long the boy was in the creek where his remains were found.
Howard Ryan, a crime scene investigations expert and former member of the New Jersey State Police, said after he reviewed all of the evidence collected during the search of a swampy area off Olympic Drive on Raritan Center in Edison on April 23 and 24, 1992--the search that uncovered the skeletal remains of Timothy Wiltsey--"nothing tells you how long he was there or how he got there."
"We're left with so many unanswered questions," Ryan said.
Ryan was testifying at a hearing before Superior Court Judge Dennis Nieves who must decide whether to allow him to testify to the jury. The prosecutors have objected to his testimony.
He also told the judge that he believes water and animals were probably responsible for scattering the rest of the boy's bones.
"Something acted on 94 percent of the (skeleton) of the body," Ryan said. "It (The 94 percent) was not there."
Ryan is expected to conclude his testimony before the judge Wednesday morning.
Lodzinski reported her son missing the evening of May 25, 1991 at a carnival in Kennedy Park in Sayreville. She told police he disappeared while she was buying soda at a concession stand.
In the weeks that followed, Lodzinski became the prime suspect in her son's disappearance after giving police several statements, each with a different version of his abduction, including one in which a woman named Ellen, who she knew slightly when she worked at a bank, and two men took him.
Lodzinski was charged in August 2014 with her son's murder after the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office reopened the case in 2011.
She has always maintained that she had nothing to do with the disappearance or death of her son.
The jury is expected to return Wednesday morning about 10 a.m.
Sue Epstein may be reached at sepstein@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @susan_epstein. Find NJ.com on Facebook.