defense attorney mark geragos had done what he could to poke holes in the prosecution s murder case against paul zumot, arguing the prosecution had no scientific proof or clear evidence zumot was anywhere near jennifer when she was strangled and when the house was set on fire. anyway, he asked, if paul attacked jennifer, wouldn t she have put up some kind of a fight? why were there no defensive marks or scratches on paul zumot s body? did the prosecution even have a case? paul zumot wasn t going to take any chances. in fact, he was determined to tell the jury his side of the story. so gerados assigned a female
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it must have been a strategy, whispered courtroom observers. the way to show the jury that paul could, in fact, interact well with a woman. but those observers were mistaken, said geragos. well, i generally i don t think direct examination is my strong suit and i was concentrating on cross-examination of the witness. so paul zumot looked the jurors in the eyes and told them, i did not kill jennifer schipsi, did not burn the house. then he told them, emotions burning, how, despite their roller coaster relationship, he truly loved jennifer. his love letter presented a letter she had written him and he broke down then, a flood of tears. i was so relieved. 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. because it s so obvious to me
found himself sifting through the records of a two-year romance studded with restraining orders, bitter quarrels, scratches, bruises, 911 calls. these are two people who had makeups and breakups and she gave verbally as good as she got. after one of their flare-ups, paul was ordered to attend anger management classes. went to one the day of the fire, as a matter of fact. so why did people who fought so much stay together for so long. there was an audio recording of jennifer herself. gillingham got hold of it. listen to her explanation. he wins your heart so the first couple of months is amazing.
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. 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