now yesterday she walked home and she said, hey, somebody probably was stalking me. had the brothers killed her, too? police listened, and then had paul give them his clothes for forensic testing. questioned by police, his home destroyed, his girlfriend dead, paul zumot was very nearly in shock, said his friend. his mind was, are they sure jen for the gone and, oh, my god, she s never coming back? as the weeks went by, paul was in a kind of daze. the gist of our conversations for the first few weeks is that jennifer s not coming back. he was completely distraught about the fact that jennifer was in that fire. meanwhile, as those same weeks went by, investigators went quietly and steadily about their task, picking through the cinders of the fire and coming to the conclusion that none of it smelled right. literally. coming up was gasoline there? no question at all.
text messages between jennifer and paul in the last few months of her life. and, oh, boy. from jennifer, you re nothing but a selfish cold-hearted scam artist liar. furious. that didn t read like any old quarrel. and the timing? jennifer sent that text to paul right at the end of the elaborate birthday party she threw for him when she had perhaps 12 hours to live. she was so upset about something that she refused to go to the hookah lounge after the party. walked all the way home on a broken heel texting all the way. jennifer good, stay away from me. i just got home. paul, i m staying away this time for good. what a way to end my birthday. for jennifer to walk home alone at night with a broken heel and upset, she had to have been i don t even know if i ve ever seen her that mad.
evening. there was traffic, i got to the cafe because that s when they open. i had to log into the computers. as soon as i sat down i have a hookah lounge. my landlord calls and says your house is on fire. i flew through the red lights and i m here. i m really frustrated and confused and exhausted and i want to know what happened. i care less about the house but jennifer s safety. i cannot think anything right now. i just cannot think anything. then in the middle of his conversation with detectives, paul s phone rang. it was jennifer s mother who told him she hadn t seen or heard from her daughter. you can see what happened. paul fell to pieces. yeah, i know. i know. i know. i can t find her. they re not telling me anything. to this point, he told detectives that he had been clinging to the hope that jennifer might be with her mother. anywhere but at home. but she wasn t with her mother. wasn t anywhere. and that s when the officer broke this news.
because girls can be evil. so he said, no, she s different. i love her. i already love her. she s great. and so in september 2009, paul and jennifer moved into the charming little cottage on addison avenue here in palo alto. time to play house. paul started to think about marriage. and for paul s 36th birthday, jennifer planned a party full of promise. she invited most of his close friends to dishdash, one of his favorite restaurants, and i think they had over a dozen people, almost 20 people or something. and jennifer created a cute table setting. she created a perfect party for paul. cake and everything. in fact, people who were there described the party as almost like a wedding reception. it lasted through the evening, into the wee hours of the morning. and now, here it was, just the very next evening, and it was gone in ashes, all of it. the excitement, the glamour, the promising future up in smoke along with the house on addison and the person inside. we have a body. i nee
was still alive. to support that claim, he introduced an expert witness who testified that texts from paul s phone and texts from jennifer s phone were hitting some of the same cell towers all afternoon. so her phone must have been right there with him in his car, which is why when she missed a meeting with her friend roy, the texts he got from her didn t make sense. they weren t a sensible response to the message he sent her. in fact, he got the same text twice. she didn t show up, and her phone was off. so as soon as i got that repeat text message, i was kind of worried because she wasn t responding to what i was saying. jennifer was nowhere to be found. jennifer was dead. now what prosecutor gillingham wanted the jury to think about is what happened or didn t happen much later after the fire.