outside and pick up a heavy flower pot and carry it back to the door of the room, which would have been locked behind him. so he must have pounded on the door until eva opened it, said the prosecutor. then he knocked her unconscious. with the flower pot. he must have beaten her and stabbed her and finally inflicted the fatal wounds to her neck. detective tomlin offered a theory of his own during testimony about the attack, and that theory did not involve sleepwalking. i think something went wrong, obviously, in that room and he snapped. then the prosecutor told the jury about reitz s episode of jealous rage a few months before. told him how reitz broke into her apartment and waved a knife around, and how her relatives noticed bruising, bite marks.
when i saw how horrific, it just amazed me. i couldn t believe it, really. i mean, there was no reason for it. obviously you re sorry. i m sorry. i wanted to face the music. but who could back up his story? nobody heard the attack. nobody saw a man with vacant eyes walking the halls, carrying a flower pot or bloody knife. nobody screamed. that was extremely odd. because once again, if you saw the destruction, the mayhem in the room, you had to figure somebody had to hear something. and based on the chaos of the crime scene, detectives surmised the attack must have taken several minutes. this was not a quick, two-second stabbing and maybe a muffled scream or a cry for help. this took a little while to do. and all done according to stephen reitz completely unconsciously, while sleepwalking. there was no outward emotion, where there was any indication that he was remorseful for his
am, and we don t prove it and the defendant walks. so be it. without some sort of motive, though, persuading a jury that reitz was fully conscious and in control might be difficult. so could anything else besides sleepwalking have triggered the attack? we have to look into everything, you know? we try to find a reason why. was there more to that secret love affair? perhaps there was another secret, something reitz kept to himself which just might explain what really happened the night in catalina. and why. coming up, turns out this sizzling relationship had a sinister secret. somehow he climbed to the third floor, to her balcony and kicked in the plate glass window with a huge knife, a machete, i heard. when deadly dreams continues.
over and over, he told detectives he couldn t quite remember. just flashes, a hazy feeling he d fought against this intruder. it was eva s knife. it was a swiss army knife. the big blade was open and it was laying on the floor by her feet, near the sliding glass door. just the sort of thing she would carry around? we asked him what knife did you use? he said eva s army knife. in fact, it should be there someplace. we used it to slice cheese earlier in the night. he said that s the only knife they had in the room. but beating and stabbing eva, that he said he could recall nothing. this is a woman supposedly he s having an affair with her. if he doesn t love her, he at least likes her. because we didn t have a motive, an apparent and obvious motive, it s in the back of your mind, okay, is he sleepwalking? is there some validity to what he s saying? and maybe there was. after all, reitz claimed to have a history of sleepwalking and he was also diagnosed as being bipolar an
you know, you re working through healing and trying to move on with your life. and then it has to be brought back up again and you have to deal with the monster face to face. but stephen reitz looked nothing like a monster when he finally entered the courtroom to face a charge of first degree murder. he was 28 by then. he seemed calm, composed, didn t s appear to be at all threatening. he looked like a nice little school boy in the courtroom. he had his glasses on, his hair was freshly cut and you look at him and it s like, wow, this kid, you know, this young man, no way could he have done what occurred. prosecuting, however, would be a new d.a., the third one assigned to the case. remember, the first d.a., frisco, was transferred away, the case reassigned to dinko bozanich, who specialized in mental defense cases. and then