The bodies were everywhere. One in the living room, two in the dining room, another in the kitchen. The three children were in the back bedroom, lying face down on mattresses, shot, like the rest, through the head and body.

Prosecutors say 31-year-old Desmond Turner was the triggerman who wiped out seven members of one family on a rainy Indianapolis night in June 2006 while searching for a safe full of money and drugs that didn't exist.

But they don't have a murder weapon, fingerprints or DNA placing him at the scene and dropped their quest for the death penalty after Turner agreed to waive his right to a jury trial.

Legal experts say Turner's trial, which begins Monday, is a difficult case because of the lack of physical evidence and the emotion over the family's grisly deaths. A new complaint against the county's top prosecutor over comments condemning the defendants could further complicate the case.

Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi has questioned the timing of the Indiana Supreme Court's Oct. 1 disciplinary complaint, which cited his earlier comment that the defendants "weren't going to let anyone or anything get in the way of what they believed to be an easy score."

The court's disciplinary commission said such comments outside the courtroom violate professional rules of conduct and could prejudice a case.

Sanctions in attorney discipline cases can range from a private reprimand to disbarment.

Brizzi said he would not comment further on the complaint until after Turner's trial.

"It is clear from the complaint that my passionate statements regarding this case may have put me in a bit of a pickle," he said in a statement.

Brizzi told The Associated Press he decided to seek life without parole instead of the death penalty for Turner because of "evidentiary considerations."

"It's the only reason," he said.

Defense attorney Brent Westerfeld said prosecutors have no physical evidence against Turner and that the evidence points to a neighbor who had a long-standing feud with the family of Emma Valdez, one of the victims.

The defense says Internet photos show him holding a gun that could have fired ammunition like that recovered at the murder scene.

"Our position is that Desmond was not involved in it," Westerfeld said.

Brizzi rejected that as "smoke and mirrors" and said prosecutors have built a case on what witnesses saw and heard and what Turner did after the murders.

Court documents allege co-defendant James Stewart was searching for the safe when he came upon Valdez's 29-year-old son, Magno Albarran, holding a gun on Turner. Investigators say Stewart fired a shot at Albarran and that Turner then "started shooting everybody."

Stewart faces trial Dec. 7.

Witnesses told investigators Turner announced hours before the murders that he was going to "hit a lick" -- street slang for a robbery -- and saw him and Stewart park in the alley behind the house.

Another saw two men enter Valdez's house and heard the shots and screams, but Brizzi won't say until the trial whether she can identify Turner as one of the men.

Police later found Turner's clothes soaking in bleach at a girlfriend's house and say Turner briefly left the state before turning himself in.

"It's not that physical evidence is stronger than circumstantial evidence; circumstantial is just a different kind of evidence," Brizzi said.

But a lack of physical evidence could have been a concern for jurors immersed in shows like "CSI," where DNA, fingerprints, fibers and other scientific evidence seem routinely abundant, said Henry Karlson, a retired professor of law at the Indiana University School of Law in Indianapolis.

Jurors are less likely to convict a defendant without such forensic evidence, Karlson said.

That's critical in a death penalty trial, where prosecutors would have had to convince jurors not only that Turner was guilty, but that he deserved to die.

"Prosecutors, when they have a completely circumstantial case ... are becoming afraid of jurors in many cases," Karlson said.

Having a judge decide the case instead of a jury can also influence the defense strategy, especially in grisly cases. Jurors can be so inflamed by graphic evidence that they want to make someone pay, and defendants are easy targets, experts say.

"A judge is less likely to become inflamed and more likely to calmly consider the evidence," Karlson said.

Janie Covarrubias said she didn't believe in the death penalty until she saw the crime scene and autopsy photos. She told The Indianapolis Star she now wants it for her father, Alberto Covarrubias, 56, two brothers, Alberto, 11, and David, 8; and the other victims: Albarran; his mother, Valdez, 46, who was Covarrubias' wife; and Albarran's sister, Flora Albarran, 22, and her son, Luis, 5.

Covarrubias did not return a message left by The Associated Press.

"I don't see any reason why he should be allowed to live," Covarrubias told the newspaper. "I've been told it's hell for him to be sitting in a cell eight hours a day. Well, it's been hell for me the past three years, not having my father and my two younger brothers."

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