Drysdale, it turned out, had been half-wrong and half-right when he said that Jennifer Witt had left out a few tiny things. Right about leaving out some things, wrong about them being tiny.

They included the testimony of an eyewitness, Anthony Alvarez, a retired fireman with a drawerful of decorations. Sixty-four years old, he lived with his invalid wife directly across the street from the Witts and had heard two shots. If there had only been one, he might have thought it was a backfire and not even bothered to look. As it was, he didn't really suspect shots even after he heard them – it had been more of a curiosity, that kind of noise. He'd gone to the window and seen Jennifer Witt in front of the gate to her house, looking back toward her door. His initial thought was that she had stopped, was wondering about the noises herself. She stayed there a couple of seconds, then began running.

There was also another witness, the next-door neighbor, Mrs. Barbieto, who'd also heard the shots and had been the one who had called the police. Larry and Jennifer Witt had been fighting for weeks, she said. Their son was an unhappy little thing. He cried all the time. The night before, that morning, "You should have heard them on Christmas" (three days before) – it seemed they nearly ruined the Barbieto's family dinner.

Hardy was taking a shotgun approach to his first reading of the file, and had turned right away to the tab marked "Civilian Witnesses." Apparently there were eyewitnesses. From a defense point of view, eyewitnesses were not particularly heartening.

He was sitting on the side of the steps outside the Hall of Justice at 7^th and Bryant. The day was cool and sunny with a light breeze that would probably kick into a gale by five o'clock. Now, though, it was pleasant, even with the bus exhaust and the fast-food wrappers beginning to swirl on the steps.

He turned back to the arresting officer's report. Inspector Terrell had begun to suspect Jennifer after she had provided him with an inventory of items that might have been missing from her home and had omitted the murder weapon. She had carefully searched the house and reported nothing missing. This was before their gun had been found under the dumpster.