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How can you try somebody for murder when you don't have a body???
If I piss off some prosecutor, could I be arrested, tried and convicted for the murder of Amelia Earhart? Chandler murder trial begins without body being found by Laurie Merrill - Oct. 21, 2011 12:00 AM The Arizona Republic Rick Valentini had a burning question when first jailed in the sudden disappearance of his girlfriend of three years, Jamie Laiaddee of Chandler, a prosecutor said Thursday. "Do you think they can charge me with murder if they can't find the body?" Valentini, 42, asked a fellow jail inmate, according to Maricopa County Deputy County Attorney Juan Martinez. Speaking during opening arguments of Valentini's murder trial, Martinez said that even without Laiaddee's body, the lack of any trace of her, the absence of e-mails, credit-card use, phone calls or cash withdrawal, show she is dead. "She just vanished on March 17, 2010," Martinez said. Valentini, who used the alias Bryan Stewart for at least seven years, is charged in Maricopa County Superior Court with murdering Laiaddee, 32, his girlfriend of more than three years. They shared a Chandler home. He has been in jail since his arrest June 10 on charges connected to Laiaddee's disappearance and was convicted of fraud in June. Valentini's attorney, Marie Forney, said in her opening argument that the jailhouse witnesses are snitches who received reduced time for saying Valentini confessed. She said Laiaddee seems to have vanished because she does not want to be found. There is no evidence of a murder, Forney said: no blood, no hairs - no body. Before she disappeared. Laiaddee told friends she had grown frightened of her boyfriend, who told people he "hated" and "hit" her and only lived with her for her money, according to opening arguments and police records. On her last day on the electronic universe, Laiaddee e-mailed a friend and said she was afraid of Valentini and didn't think police could help. She had a high-paying job, two cars, cellphones, a father and sister who loved her and a group of friends from the University of Michigan who doted on her. When she vanished, they put up fliers and generated publicity in hopes of finding her, calling themselves, "Friends of Jamie Laiaddee." Martinez, in his opening statement, said Laiaddee had thousands of dollars in an account she has not attempted to use, she stopped reporting to her job, and she stopped spending any money. Even more telling is what she left behind: Her two cars, cellphones, driver's license, wallet, credit and health cards, birth control and all her clothes, Martinez said. Her last activities, captured because she used credit cards, show a busy morning that included a car oil change, online auto registration and making purchases at Staples with her corporate credit card. She planned to be at work at 6 a.m. March 18, Martinez said. But she never showed up. And all electronic activity ceased. By 2 a.m. March 18, Valentini was using one of Laiaddee's credit cards to buy a new bed covering. Valentini, Martinez said, didn't report her missing, telling everyone she just up and left for Colorado. |