Jury Sees Car at Center of Murder Trial

SARASOTA, Florida–In the Florida death penalty trial of Michael King, the jury view took place Wednesday of the dark green Camaro belonging to the defendant.

Jurors slowly walked around the car that had been brought to the courthouse at the request of prosecutors.

While some jurors took notes, the defendant was seated at a table, shackled at his ankles, but his confinement was hidden from jurors because of a skirt in place around the table.

In other testimony, Robert Salvador admitted he had gone to a shooting range with the defendant the morning of the murder of Denise Lee and had personally placed King’s 9 mm pistol back in the defendant’s car when their target practice concluded.

The defense, on cross-examination, focused on Salvador’s lack of truthfulness when originally questioned by police and even suggested to Salvador that he met King close to the murder site later that afternoon and shot Denise Lee himself. “Absolutely not!” Salvador answered. He allowed to stand, however, the question asking Salvador if he killed Lee.

That exchange created a vigorous argument by attorneys out side the presence of the jury. The result was an instruction to the jury from Judge Deno Economou telling them to completely disregard the majority of that line of questioning by the defense.