i think a lot of people were shocked by the verdict because, i mean, if you sat through the weeks and weeks of trial, it just it s inconceivable how they could get to the result that they got to. but to the jurors, the issues about text messages and whether paul had jennifer s phone all afternoon wasn t as important as zumot on the stand. that s what made the difference. his tears, for example. sometimes i feel like i m too cynical, but it was universally held opinion, i think, the entire jy believed that it was a manufactured moment. what was the problem wh his testimony? there were two things that struck me. one was when he broke down on the stand. and to me it didn t seem genuine. and the other portion of his testimony was when he had the opportunity to tell us where he was and what he was doing. he chose to basically lie to us
looked at the evidence and what this guy said was the phone pinging off the same towers was not. it was just merged data from the cell phone. why is that important? because, says geragos, the prosecution s own time line should have cleared paul zumott, that is, investigators said jennifer was strangled several hours before the fire started, and it was lit no earlier than about 6:30 p.m. but early in the afternoon, after paul had left the area, geragos says, jennifer was still alive, sending real, not fake, text messages, herself, from her phone. by all accounts, she was alive at 1:17. okay. okay. and at 1:17, paul was not at the house. so, where was paul? trying to pickup paperwork at the palo alto police station, and then at the hookah lounge where he appears on security cam footage at 1:37 p.m. and from there says the defense attorney,
your client. then when he presented his case, geragos set out to reframe the events after that infamous party the night before the fire. the party was at a place and it was for paul s birthday, and it was planned by jennifer. and the and maybe 14 to 18 of their close friends that were there. and by all accounts at the party, everything was great. and the argument later, the angry text, that was just the way paul and jennifer always were, said geragos. his proof? after those angry text message exchanges, here s what happened. as zumott described in his police interview. we talked, we smoked hookah, everything is fine. we did what we did. you know? i said give me two kpxan axes.
text messages herself from her phone. by all accounts, she was alive at 1:17. okay. and at 1:17, paul was not at the house. so where was paul? trying to pick up paperwork at the palo alto police station and then at the hookah lounge where he appears on security camera video footage around 1:37 p.m. and then from there he headed to his anger management class about 18 miles away. on the way, he stopped at the restaurant depot seen here on camera around 3:30. so there simply wasn t time in between, said geragos, for paul to go to the cottage, strangle his girlfriend and douse her body with gasoline. a solid alibi, said geragos. his client simply couldn t have killed jennifer, and he couldn t have started the fire. how could he have been in two places at once? and as for rosie, the yellow lab who alerted to a gasoline smell
and then from there he headed to his anger management class about 18 miles away. on the way, he stopped at the restaurant depot seen here on camera around 3:30. so there simply wasn t time in between, said geragos, for paul to go to the cottage, strangle his girlfriend and douse her body with gasoline. a solid alibi, said geragos. his client simply couldn t have killed jennifer, and he couldn t have started the fire. how could he have been in two places at once? and as for rosie, the yellow lab who alerted to a gasoline smell on zumot s clothes, those clothes were sent to the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms, and they showed no evidence of gasoline at all. the atf has a protocol and the atf also put out a protocol that said they put out a