paul s behavior into context. maybe he wasn t any more to blame than she was. their relationship was chaotic. there s no disputing that, absolutely. but he was no more violent in the relationship than she was. whether it be physically, verbally, emotionally. as police gathered evidence, bit by bit, asking around about paul, one of them noticed something a little odd. paul told a friend, also a policeman, by the way, two slightly different stories about his whereabouts the day of the fire. first conversation, day of the fire, reported the cop friend, paul said he wasn t home all day. then, second conversation, next day, paul said he stopped briefly at home en route to his hookah cafe. as we say, odd. but people s memories can be tricky.
that killed jennifer schipsi was no accident, but who would have wanted her dead and why? here again is keith morrison. the morning after the fire on addison avenue, the ruins still warm, a yellow lab named rosie sniffed around what was by then a sealed crime scene. rosie was trained to identify some of the tools of arson kerosene, oil, gasoline. rosie stopped in her tracks. she d apparently found something. chuck gillingham is a deputy district attorney in palo alto. was gasoline there? no question at all. it s in her hair. you can smell it when you walked in just with your own nose, and the remnants of the gas can was found next to her right hip. there was still enough remnants of the gas can to identify the type and make and model of the gas can. wow. that s like somebody leaving a gun beside the body with their fingerprints all over it, isn t it? no fingerprints and no physical evidence beyond that. but it was so clear that it was an arson? correct. and the arson was
not the best description. paul was full of nervous energy and frantic questions. at this point, nobody had told him that jennifer was in that fire. i m worried about my house. what about my girlfriend? what caused the fire, and i don t care about this. i just want to know about jennifer right now. i m not sure i know anything more than you do. my job is to talk to you and find out what exactly you know because you probably know more than me at this point.
fire. i believe somebody was threatening us. so was paul zumot on to something? detectives went to talk to the brothers and, of course, checked to see where both men were the day of the fire. and there was no doubt they were nowhere near the fire. they had alibis. at the time of the fire, we know exactly where both of them were. one of the ghanma was in their cafe, and he s on videotape and the other was at fry s electronics and home depot 20 minutes away. we have videotape and receipts from both of those locations. so once the ghanma brothers were in the clear, cops do what they always do in cases like this.
no. no. so, together, police and zumot talked about the hours before the fire. where had she been? what had she and paul been doing? well, yesterday was my birthday. we went out, and everything was fine, you know. who s we ? me and her and all of our friends. who is her? jennifer. your girlfriend? yeah. paul explained that he spent the afternoon at an appointment in san jose and got back in time for his cafe to open in the 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 moth