The second day of testimony began first thing on Wednesday, October 1, 2008. Andrew Taravella finished under a cloud of some rather heated discussion between the judge, Rob Freyer, and Mike DeGeurin, as DeGeurin picked up on his cross-examination.

There was a fine line to walk with Taravella for DeGeurin; he couldn't let the guy slide without questioning, but then he couldn't necessarily come out of the box and attack him, either.

DeGeurin stuck to the facts he believed he could go after without coming across as too far reaching. Bullet fragments. Reports. Where certain pieces of evidence were found as opposed to what a specific report might have said. DeGeurin focused his argument on a single bullet fragment and why Taravella had never written about it in one of his reports. It was inconsequential, truly, to the scope of the accusations against Christine, but then maybe DeGeurin wanted to point out to the jury that nobody is infallible and that even law enforcement made mistakes.

After a brief back-and-forth between them about bullet fragments and where the shooter was standing at any given time, DeGeurin moved on to trashing the victims, saying, "I noticed that you found multiple discount cards from Club Exotica-you pointed that out-in different areas of the house and stacks of them, is that correct?"

"Yes, sir. They . . . were, like, five-dollar-off admission into the club and they had a place to write someone's name on them. And there were some that had Rachael's name on them, some that had Tiffany's name on them, and there were stacks around the house."

This was a good way to get into the record that Tiffany and Rachael had worked for a strip joint.

"You also pointed out some cards from Heart Breakers. Do you remember that?"

"I believe so. Yes, sir."

"What is Heart Breakers?"

"I don't know. I assume it's another adult nightclub."

"It's not something that you followed up on? That would be something that the detectives would have followed up on, is that correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"Thank you, Officer."

"Pass the witness."

Before Taravella stepped down, some bickering about a report and what was in the report started between DeGeurin and Freyer, the judge getting involved soon after.

Taravella then endured a recross and was dismissed. DeGeurin and the judge got into a debate over the report. By Freyer's estimation, DeGeurin had insinuated-while the jury was present-that Freyer, when he got back the report DeGeurin had used to cross-examine Taravella with, would "hide" something within the report, or even add something that had not been there.

This infuriated Freyer, who kept his composure despite the outright attack.

"I have never seen anybody be so insistent," DeGeurin said at one point during the conversation-the jury out of the room-"that immediately upon me looking at something. . . and taking rough notes, just to take them back."

"I've been down here twenty-two years," Judge Ellis said. "I've seen it (the exchanging of documents between lawyers) happen every single trial I ever tried. So, I don't know where you have been, but I don't care if you get it marked, that's fine. You only get it for cross-examination. You know that. It is the work product and part of the district attorney's file. They always do that in every single case, so-"

DeGeurin interrupted, saying, "Well, that's not been my experience, Judge."

"Well, whatever," the judge snapped.

"Out of respect to the court, just for the record, I resent any personal insinuation that I would-or Mr. Goodhart or I would-ever hide anything," Freyer said with a bit of discontent in his voice, obviously upset that DeGeurin would accuse him of such a thing. "And I think that . . . in the hundred-plus felony cases I've tried, and in the cases that I've tried in this court in front of you, Judge, I don't think we've ever been any more accommodating to the defense when it comes to-and, you know, Mike, if you're going to make those allegations against me, then don't do it in front of the jury. I resent it."

DeGeurin continued bantering about his desire to have the documents marked as exhibits, again insinuating that something might mysteriously appear in them that had not been there when he had used the documents to question Officer Taravella. He went on and on.

The judge explained to DeGeurin that he could mark down any page numbers of documents he wanted to, and then check them against the record posttrial, but he wasn't going to go through this nonsense anymore, and certainly not after each witness. Concluding with a smidgen of You had better! in his frustrated tone, Ellis asked, "Do you understand that?"

"Yes, Judge," DeGeurin said.

The judge brought in the jury, sat them, and then Tom Ladd entered the witness stand. Tom had been retired for more than four years. He looked better, healthier, although he walked with a limp because of those bad football knees catching up with him and the sad fact that arthritis had been kicking his ass these days.

Ladd spoke about his career for just a moment and quickly got into how he had arrived at the Clear Lake crime scene "sometime after seven" and ended up staying until "three, four o'clock in the morning, maybe longer."

The retired detective established many facts for ADA Tom Goodhart. Among those at the scene, Ladd explained, was the notion that a robbery might have occurred. But looking further, he said none of the drawers had been opened and pulled out.

"Did you find any drugs in that house?"

"No, I did not."

"Did somebody find some drugs in that house?"

"Yes."

"Who was that?"

"I don't recall who it was."

"Did you ever go look at the drugs?"

"No. Yochum, you know, handled that part. He just advised me of it."

"But it was small amounts of marijuana?"

Ladd spoke of how he came to the conclusion that Marcus and Adelbert had "sold drugs" for a living.

"People came up and started telling us that."

After discussing the drug scene in Seabrook, Ladd talked about all the Crime Stoppers tips HPD had received and how they had to check each and every one.

When Goodhart asked Ladd who he believed had killed the kids, Ladd did not hesitate, saying, "Dopers!" Dope and dope dealing was, in fact, the definite focus of the investigation in 2003 and even into 2004. He mentioned Jason Uolla by name. He talked about others he interviewed. Once Ladd said he made up his mind about it being a drug-related crime, there was no turning back. He never wavered.

Why?

Because the evidence had pointed to it, time and again.

DeGeurin took his crack at Tom Ladd and could not get the man to admit anything other than the truth as he had uncovered it.

In the end Tom Ladd had been right-the murders, if you believed Christine Paolilla and her version, were the result of a man who set out to steal drugs from a pair of dope dealers.

Next on the witness stand was another officer who was present at the Millbridge Drive scene. He walked in and told his stories, which included more of the same gory and graphic detail.

Then Brian Harris took the stand and related how he had become involved and how the hierarchy of assigning a murder case to the unit operated inside HPD. After that, Harris mentioned how, when he became involved months into the case, he took some time and read through every piece of paper connected to the case in order to get acquainted. And when Tom Ladd retired the following year, Harris said, he took the lead in the case.

Then Katrina happened.

There was a lull. But the case was always in his mind, tugging at him.

Then came the tip.

For some time-perhaps longer than he needed-Harris talked about how large the case was as a report itself, and how much information had been collected throughout the entire length of the investigation.

As DeGeurin kept objecting, citing relevance, Freyer had Harris move on to Crime Stoppers and how important it was to the success of the program for callers to maintain their anonymity if they chose so.

Then they talked about how much media coverage the case had received, and because of all the news stories, several policies had to be changed as it pertained to the way HPD gave out information to the press regarding unsolved crimes.

Harris explained all the red herrings he had chased down throughout the years.

He mentioned that several of the tips late into the investigation he followed up on contained information that had never been reported by the media, including where Christine worked. Or that Snider had moved from Crosby, Texas, to Louisville, Kentucky. Or that Snider was incarcerated. Or that the guns used in the murders could be found inside the safe in Snider's parents' house.

Nobody, Harris insisted, but the killers could have known those facts.

And just like that, Harris had given Justin Rott the credibility he would soon need to carry him through what was surely going to be a rough time on the stand. No matter what DeGeurin asked, what Christine said about him, or how many times the guy had been arrested or in rehab, no one and no thing could change the fact that Justin Rott could have never known the facts Harris described without them being passed on to him by his wife.

Then came an important part of Harris's testimony. His questioning of Christine on that first night she was taken into custody in San Antonio. Harris had to make sure the jury knew that he was well aware of her "condition" and that he'd had experience with questioning "intoxicated" and/or "high" suspects. He knew when the right and wrong time was to question a suspect and made several good points to the jury in answering Freyer's tough questions.

"Would you expect to be able to successfully or-interview someone who was unable to process in what you were telling them or asking them and then process it and then give an answer, too? If that person was unable to do that, would you interview that person?"

"No. Because my interviews are very complex. Very detailed."

"Okay. And just jumping ahead before we talk about a couple of other things, did you later perform two interviews of this defendant that you've identified here in court?"

"Yes."

"And without getting into the contents of them right now, did you believe that in doing so that she was unable to understand your questions, or that she was intoxicated and that she could not be interviewed?"

"No. There were numerous occasions throughout the interview I was quite impressed with her coherency and her ability to reason."

"And when she was arrested, did you see with your own eyes a large amount of evidence in this hotel room of previous drug usage?"

"Yes."

"And what was that in the form of?"

"Hundreds of needles, blood on the wall, the stench of unclean clothes, and just-it was-"

"Nasty?"

"-filthy. It was almost indescribable."

"All right. Now, regarding your training in intoxication and observing intoxicated people, I mean, when you're out on the street doing murder cases, do you often come in contact with people that are high, intoxicated?"

"Yes."

All a juror who might not have believed Harris needed to do was take a look at that videotape of Harris's first interview with Christine and it would become apparent that she knew what she was talking about. Heck, she knew enough to lie. Because she did it, over and over again, knowing where, exactly, to place a mistruth, and where, exactly, to tell the truth. In addition, Christine had not made any major admissions during that first interview.

CHAPTER 68.

MIKE DEGEURIN NEEDED to go after Brian Harris. He needed to question the guy's tactics, his skills as an interrogator, his tenacity, his cockiness, and his ability to treat Christine, on that first night she was brought in, not with kid gloves, but with the rough, bare hands of a cop looking to get a confession and close a case that had been cold for years. It was DeGeurin's job to dig, press Harris on the hard issues, and see if he could expose a mistake or two Harris had made.

The way to begin this assault was to go after what was one of the more pejorative pieces of evidence the state had in its arsenal: Michelle and Craig Lackner's interviews and descriptions of those two people outside their window. It was their statements that had led to those now-infamous sketches, and the Lackners picking Snider and Christine out of a photo lineup. If the Lackners had seen sketches of the suspects before looking at the photo lineup, their testimony, which Rob Freyer had planned to bring in last, would register as questionable.

"You had with you the-in your offense report-the description that the Lackners had given back . . . on July 18, 2003, is that correct?" DeGeurin began.

"Yes," Harris said, looking up.

"And when you decided to go to them with a photo array, you had obtained a picture of Christine Paolilla and also one of Mr. Snider, correct?"

"Yes."

It would be stupid to go to them without a photo of both suspects. What would have been the purpose?

"Did you call the Lackners up and tell them to come somewhere, or did you go to their house?"

"We went to their office. . . . That address, it's an office complex. We went to their place of employment."

"You say 'we.' Who was with you?"

"Myself and Investigator Tom McCorvey," Harris said.

"Anyone else?"

Where was DeGeurin going with this?

"No."

"And when you went, did you have these two exhibits that we're talking about now-the photo arrays-with you?"

"Yes."

"When you got there, did you tell them," DeGeurin stopped himself and thought a moment. Changing the question, he asked, "First of all, did you tell them on the phone why you were coming by to see them?"

"Yes."

"By the way, was that recorded?"

Why would a cop record such a routine call?

"No."

"Did you make a notation of what you told them on the phone?"

"Yes."