A homicide investigator with the Montgomery County Detective Bureau testified about his interaction with Jonathan Harris, whom he picked up in Pittsburgh after federal marshals nabbed him.
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Detective Todd Richard said Harris immediately shook his hand, saying "I'd like to tell you my side of the story." Richard described Harris as "polite and articulate" from the interrogation room to the follow up four-hour car ride back, during which Harris was allowed to call his mother and sister on a three-way speakerphone from the back seat. Richard quotes Harris as telling them "I'm going away to jail for the rest of my life."
Defense attorney Chuck Peruto Jr. does not think it rises to a first-degree murder case, suggesting "there was no intent to kill."
"I would take it, like Jim Brown running for the goal line," he said.
Prosecutors also asked for, and Judge William Carpenter agreed, to add the charge of strangulation when the case goes to trial.
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