of his career and he'd always said to me, "if you get a juicy murder, that give me a call. i'll try it with ya." and i called him half expecting him to be, like, "nah, you know, i'm too old. i don't wanna do it." and he was onboard immediately, so -- >> this ended up being that case. >> that was that case, right. >> reporter: dr. anthony garcia insisted that he was innocent. but the mottas were concerned that extensive press coverage of the murders was giving potential jurors only one side of the story. >> they needed to hear that there were so many other people with means, motive, and opportunity that could have committed this crime that makes much more sense than somebody waiting 13 years to, you know, murder somebody that they knew for a very short period of time. >> reporter: in pretrial hearings, the mottas battled with prosecutors as if they were rival mma fighters. todd cooper remembers being in the judge's chambers one day when bob motta started shouting at prosecutors.