and prosecutor chuck gillingham found himself sifting through the records of a two-year romance with restraining orders, 911 calls. these are two people, makeups and breakups, she gave verbally as good as she got. after one flair up, paul was ordered to attend anger management classes. went to one the day of the fire, in fact. why did two people who fought so much stay together for so long. there was, as it turned out, an audio recording of jennifer herself. gillingham got hold of it, listened to her explanation. he wins her heart, so the first couple months is amazing. sweeps her off your feet. candles everywhere. flowers. not money ems, but just romantic and sweet talking. and parading you around. wanting to introduce you to everybody. it gets me loving him and admiring him that he admires me. and then it makes me trust his
some observers as strange. after all, there had been just that one little inconsistency. and though paul and jennifer did fight sometimes, they seemed crazy in love, too. paul had been shopping for a diamond ring for heaven s sake. there was a part of paul that was mourning his girlfriend. and then there was a part of him he didn t understand why he was in custody. he didn t understand why he wouldn t just cry for his girlfriend, and for his life that had just changed 100%. it certainly did. paul was taken to jail to await trial on a charge of murder in the first degree. big mistake said paul. when i first saw him, he all he was really still telling me is, you know, me being in custody, all of this will blow over with. they ll realize, i m not the person who did this. this will be over with.
paul and jennifer seemed a match made in heaven. a prosecutor believed he had plenty of evidence that pointed to the contrary. here again is keith morrison. in the days after the fire on addison avenue, after paul was charged with murder and hauled off to jail, events in palo alto seemed to freeze somehow. in confusion and denial from paul s point of view, and grief among the people who loved jennifer. it hurt. it hurt a lot. for some reason though he had been arrested, paul wasn t entering a plea. which is what this was all about. candlelight vigils outside of paul s hookah lounge by jennifer s friend and family. we decided to stand in front of his establishment every night until he made his plea. eventually no surprise, paul did plead not guilty.
my girlfriend. what caused the fire. i want to know about jennifer right now. i m not sure that i know anymore than you do. my job is to basically talk to you and find out what you know. you probably know more than me at this point. no. no. so together police talked about the hours before the fire. where had she been in what had she and paul been doing. yesterday was my birthday. went out. everything was fine. me and her. all the friends. who is her? jennifer. that s your girlfriend? yeah. paul explained to police he spent the afternoon at an appointment in san jose, got back to palo alto for his cafe to open for the evening. i came here. there was traffic. i got to the cafe. that s when they open. i just log into the computers. as soon as i sat down, i have a hookah lounge here.
whispered courtroom observers. a way to show the jury that paul could in fact, interact with a woman. those observers were mistaken. i generally i don t think direct examination is my strong suit. i was concentrating on cross-examination of the witnesses. paul zumot looked the jurors in the eyes and said i did not kill jennifer. did not burn the house. then he told them, emotions building, how despite their roller coaster relationship, he truly loved jennifer. his lawyer presented add love letter in fact that she had written to him and he broke down then. flood of tears. i was so relieved and i thought, you know, if there was any way this jury thought this man was responsible for this, now they know for sure that he s not. it s so obvious to me that he s telling the truth. but, listening to all of this