Opinion ID: 1182224
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Sightings

Text: At trial, the state presented 9 witnesses who testified that they saw defendant and/or his automobile on the afternoon of September 17. Some of these witnesses claimed to have seen defendant driving slowly through the victim's neighborhood, one witness testified that he saw defendant leaving the neighborhood with a young child in his car, and others placed defendant north of the neighborhood in an area where the child's remains were later found. The specific events that occurred between the time that Mary was last seen and the time that defendant returned to De Anza Park cannot be known with certainty. What is known with relative certainty, however, is that Mary left her home at approximately 3:30 in the afternoon and that defendant returned to the park at least one hour before sunset. Therefore, two crucial aspects common to all of these sightings were the times at which they occurred and the sequence in which they transpired. To support the state's interpretation, the sightings must have occurred within the finite time period during which defendant could have abducted the child, driven to northwest Tucson, and returned to the park. The credibility of each of these witnesses, therefore, was dependent to a considerable degree on when the sightings occurred both in time and in relation to the other sightings. Indeed, the defense made considerable efforts to stress apparent inconsistencies in the sequence and times of the sightings.