Andrew Rogers will take the stand to testify at his own murder trial, his defense attorney told the jury this morning.

“I imagine, even though he has no obligation to so, that Andy is going to testify,” Deborah Lux, Rogers’ defense attorney, said during her opening statements.

Lux said Rogers will tell the jury about the struggle that ensued in his home, which resulted in the death of Penn State student Youngcheol Park, 24, on Feb. 23, 2006. She said Rogers will explain details of the case, such as why he knew there was a rolling pin, which he allegedly used to defend himself, between his couch cushions.

District Attorney Michael Madeira began the day’s proceedings with the prosecution’s opening statement, choosing to begin his recounting of the incident four days after it took place, when Lt. Michael Metros found Rogers standing in the Uniontown police department parking lot.

“What he heard from the defendant made the day one of the strangest days in his career,” Madeira said.

Madeira told jurors of the “blood-soaked” textbook found as evidence that Park was studying in Rogers’ home that evening, and described the walls, curtains, ceiling, and refrigerator of the house as being smeared with blood after Rogers chased Park throughout the house.

Madeira told jurors that an empty beer can found next to Park’s body showed Rogers “took some time leaving” the house after taking money from Park’s wallet, an assumption that was objected to by the defense.

Madeira told jurors that Rogers choked Park, resulting in a bruise from ear-to-ear, and crushed his skull with a baseball bat — “all for $250 and a couple baggies of coke.”

Lux then addressed the jury, beginning her opening statement by talking about Rogers’ humble upbringings in Iowa City and his time spent studying abroad in Ecuador.

She said the evening of Park’s death, Rogers was outside walking with Park when a dark vehicle approached them on the street and a voice called out, “Yo Young!”

She said Rogers was introduced to the man in the vehicle as “Sweet.”

“Sweet?” Rogers asked, Lux said. “Something like that,” she said the man replied.

Upon returning to Rogers’ apartment, she said Rogers began to feel uncomfortable when Sweet began rifling through his cash and later fought back once Sweet attempted to place a plastic bag over his head.

Metros was the first witness to testify this morning, and he read aloud the handwritten statement Rogers made to police in Uniontown.

John Tlumac, the State College police officer who first investigated Rogers’ residence at 224 Nimitz Ave after receiving a call from Uniontown, described entering the house as “eerie.”

The only light was a dim light over the dining room table and the ambience from the DVD menu to the movie “The Beach” continually repeating on the television, he said. In the middle of kitchen he said they found Park’s body, confirming his identification after calling his cell phone, which began ringing in his pocket.

Deirdri Fishel, the State College detective who investigated both Park’s and Rogers’ residences and oversaw the Park’s autopsy, was the final witness this morning. Fishel described Park’s face as being so abnormally crushed that during the autopsy, pieces of his skull fell out “like a jigsaw puzzle” onto the table.