re Merritt referring to them
all in the past tense, I'm nearly finished typing up the opening speech but I have done that part already so I'll post it now - (the recording when the detective speaks is terrible so some parts are missing)
Partial Transcript - Prosecutor's Opening Speech:
"And he says the following; [recording played]
Joseph – Jos - Joseph was one of my best friends [inaudible] obviously and my business associate and that’s not something I wanna live with, so
Detectives asked him about Joseph’s relationship with Summer;
You say about his wife did he love her?
oh yeah yeah, he definitely loved her, um, he, she’s a pain in the butt, um, he was pussy-whipped.
Any domestic violence did you ever observe?
Never, Joseph was [answer cut]
They next asked about basic questions - again it’s a missing persons’ investigation they’re still in the first 2 days of this - how tall Joseph was and how much he weighed, weighs;
How tall is he and how much does he weigh?
Shorter than me I can actually tell you about what he weighed only because I..one of these articles here said his weight was 175 but he was 5 – 8 [5’8”] I would guess, he was I mean that’s about 5-8 isn’t it?
No [inaudible] about 5-6 so
He was – he was definitely, definitely shorter than me (laughs).
Next they asked about the condition of the house, if he had seen it, in particular that light that was in Joseph’s study that I showed you the photograph of, he was asked about that;
But I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt I know for a fact that that light I had never seen it off. Ok, he always leaves, he always left it on, because his kids get up in the middle of the night and they go downstairs and get water out of the, out of the refrigerator and he always left that light on and the door open so that they didn’t fall down the stairs.
They asked him questions about the children, Gianni and Joseph jr.;
Always [inaudible] these kids because his boys were I mean they would get up on the kitchen
I saw a video on youtube,…[inaudible] I saw how energetic they are.
that’s a good word for it,
[inaudible] corporal punishment?
No she didn’t believe in it, didn’t believe in any kind of corporal, she, I swear she would go stop it, stop it, stop it she would do that for half an hour until they lost interest in whatever they were doing and go about doing something else. (laughing) It was, oh god [inaudible], yeah.
They asked about those vehicles that I showed you earlier, the green Dodge and the white Trooper, where they were typically parked;
Do you know where… park the car the white SUV? [some parts inaudible]
Directly in front of the house on the street. She always parked the truck in the driveway. She didn’t like him parking the white car next to it because she couldn’t get the kids in or out.
You might be asking or wondering why is he playing these clips? And why did I stress, why does he keep stressing two times that the sheriff’s department’s only known about this case for less than 48 hours. Because you may have noticed something about some of those clips, you may have noticed something about his speech in those clips, this is their first contact with him. SDSD noticed and this is what they said and this was his response;
Do you have any knowledge or information …[dead?]
No.
…ask because you have used the past tense …you said Jo was, typically people don’t do that..alive
Yeah
Any explanation as to why you may have done that?
No, not really I just… no, I
And further;
It’s interesting because we deal with .. all the time and oftentimes they all will notify them their loved one is dead and they will still use the present tense because it really hasn’t set in. That’s why I’m asking you, you used past tense a couple of times it’s really unusual.
Yeah. I have no idea, you know I’m not sure what, what I used past tense in context with er.. I have no idea why.
You said Jo was my best friend.
Oh. I did.
You did.
I don’t know why.
No one knows that they’re dead. San Diego’s conducting a missing persons’ investigation and he’s saying Joseph was my best friend. He’s saying the kids were energetic. In fact if you notice on one clip he corrects himself and says Joseph always leaves Joseph always left that light on. You’ll hear the entire interview, and you’ll hear that he does slip in and out."
