I find it interesting that so many believe that the friends of DM & MS lied to police and/or lied on the stand (and I think many of them did as well), but as soon as MS said he or she lied or wasn't being honest, it's a 180 and he's the liar. Granted, I think he's lying too about certain things but it's just interesting how that works out.
Yes, but the salient factor here is that every single time someone else's testimony/statement disagreed with his version of events they were either 'mistaken' or 'a liar'. It was never him who was 'mistaken' or 'a liar'. It was the other person. This extended to his own mother and girlfriend.
Smich's entire testimony was based on everything possible that absolved him of murder. He admitted to theft and drug dealing (but how could he not?) but when it came to the killing of TB, he was just a scared, frightened, panicked dupe who did what he was told by his rich, maniac friend.
When the evidence/testimony of others suggested otherwise, he either developed a total, all encompassing amnesia or he accused others of lying.
A cleaned up, drug free, smartly dressed, composed and well rehearsed MS can come across as credible. Even I was taken in during the early part of his testimony. But as soon as we got to the disposal of the gun(s) and the blanket amnesia, so that he can't even recall which direction he cycled in, how deep he dug, how he carried the shovel, the general area, where he went afterwards and so on. Not one single recollection of anything, other than he buried it somewhere - then I knew he was lying through his teeth.
It's easy to agree with Smich when he calls Christina Noudga a liar. We know she is. And none of us liked her - there was universal condemnation of her on that witness stand. So yes, he's scored a point. He's telling the truth and she isn't. But then when you actually look at what she is supposedly lying about, it was a very brief phone call of no consequence. It made no difference to her situation and it makes no difference to his. She said herself it was inconsequential and comprised him telling her '**** had gone down' and not much else. In fact she said it was pointless and it irritated her. So we are expected to believe that MS can't remember anything about burying the murder weapon(s) and he can't remember anything about a 50 minute face to face conversation with DM just prior to the latter being arrested. Yet we believe him utterly when he says he never spoke to Noudga. MM could have passed him the phone briefly, he could have been calling out in the background '**** has gone down' and that's what Noudga heard. I've had conversations with people when someone else is there calling things out. We know there was communication between Noudga and MM's phone and that MS was with MM at the time. So why do we then accept without question that CN is 'a liar' because MS tells us she is? Because it plays perfectly into our dislike of her.
MS has a brilliant lawyer, quite exceptional and that was apparent early on in this trial. They've put up a good show - everything possible to cast reasonable doubt over MS's culpability. They've come at this from the angle of yes, we know he was a thieving, drop out, drunkard, drug dealer, but look at him now. Cleaned up, studied in prison and wanting to put things right. Only he's not interested in putting things right. He's interested in saving his own skin and it might have worked had it not involved flying in the face of evidence, huge memory black outs and calling not one, or two but most other witnesses ... liars.