Opinion ID: 2630926
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Evidence Concerning Earl Bothwell

Text: Letner's defense investigator, Cliff Webb, testified that Bothwell informed him investigator Johnson had provided him (Bothwell) with details of the murder prior to interviewing him. Tobin's investigator, James Dunham, testified that Bothwell said he intentionally avoided becoming involved after defendants were arrested, because he feared defendants and believed he might be held responsible for not promptly contacting the police regarding defendants' admissions. Bothwell also had refused to allow Dunham to record the interview. According to Dunham, Bothwell also told him that investigator Johnson had briefed Bothwell thoroughly regarding the facts of the case prior to taking his statement. Detective Logan testified that on the day after the arrests, Bothwell checked out of the motel where he and defendants had been staying. When Logan arrived in Iowa he observed that the local media in Council Bluffs had provided some coverage of defendants' arrests. In Tobin's case in surrebuttal, Mercedes Brasel testified that she wrote a check payable to Bothwell on March 28, 1988, as payment for work she had hired him to do on her house. A copy of the check was admitted into evidence. Part of the work included a painting project, which, according to Brasel, Tobin completed on the day she wrote the check. Brasel testified that after Bothwell dropped off Tobin at her house, Tobin started the work. Bothwell picked him up that evening when the work was completed. During the prosecution's case, Bothwell had testified that Letner and Tobin confessed to the murder on March 28, 1988, and that Bothwell had told Tobin that Bothwell did not have any work for him that daythat is, according to Bothwell's testimony, Tobin would not have painted Brasel's house on that day.