Edmund Ko Trial: 2000

In reply, chief defense lawyer Jack Litman urged the jury to "scrutinize this case … [because] we believe the wrong person has been arrested." The real killer, according to Litman, was Ko's "pathologically" jealous current girlfriend, Claudia Seong, a 33-year-old aspiring fashion designer. "Claudia Seong was making all the rules," said Litman. "She wanted Lynda Hong dead. When she learned that Hong had called her a prostitute, she sought revenge."

Litman alleged Seong had ordered a henchman, Jae Young Shin, to murder Hong. Certainly, Shin had been untruthful when questioned by police officers shortly after the murder, and then, when the investigation became more heated, he had fled to his native Korea in November 1998.

While Prunty didn't dispute Seong's hold over Ko, she poured cold water on defense claims that he was merely an innocent pawn of this scheming, older woman. At the time of his arrest, Ko had already been bailed out of jail for his part in yet another sadistic attack on an ex-girlfriend. Diane Kim told the court how, just months before Hong's murder, she had herself been held down by Ko and Seong's sister, while Seong, in a jealous frenzy, slashed her across the face, legs and head.

In this sketch Edmund Ko listens in court during his murder trial. (AP/Wide World Photos)

Poignant testimony came from Hong's best friend, Se Ok, who described talking on the phone to Hong just minutes before her alleged time of death, only for Hong to abruptly terminate the call by saying, "It's Ed [at the door] I have to go."

Litman said Ko didn't deny being at Hong's apartment that night, but "he didn't kill her. He spoke to her. He left in about half-an-hour."

When they had first charged Ko, the district attorney's office had trumpeted the fact that a bloodstained knife had been found at his parents' home. Now Prunty revealed an abrupt change of prosecutorial heart, saying, "We will nor be offering [into evidence] the knives recovered from his parents' apartment," admitting that no murder weapon had been found.

The reason for this U-turn became clear when Nagy Bekhit, a fingerprint expert, testified. He admitted that he might have accidentally contaminated the knife with blood from other evidence samples. Asked by Prunty if he could have used the same brush on the knives that he had used to dust the bloodied papers, Bekhit said, "Maybe." The witness explained that he did not always clean or change brushes after using them to dust an item for fingerprints.

"Could you have transferred dried blood from one item to another?" Prunty asked.

"It's a possibility," Bekhit admitted.

All of which was meat and drink to Litman, who seized upon Bekhit's admission as further evidence that Ko had been the victim of a conspiracy, in which the police and the FBI had planted blood and hair evidence to bolster their flabby case.

Litman had far less success explaining away a bloodstained black sweatshirt found next to Hong's body. It was identified as belonging to Ko.