BAKERSFIELD -- Testimony in the Vincent Brothers murder trial was delayed for about an hour Friday morning when Judge Michael Bush met with the defense team of Michael Gardina and J. Anthony Bryan, as well as the defendant. The closed door meeting was to address a Marsden Motion, where the defendant, Vincent Brothers in this case, expresses his desire to have new legal counsel in the case. After the hour closed door hearing Judge Bush denied the motion. The judge is required to allow defendants time to explain why they want to counsel in their defense.

The key witness Friday was Tamba Libbie, a Columbus, Ohio used car salesman, testified that he was involved in an accident on a holiday weekend in 2003. His description of the accident was almost identical to the description given by Vincent Brothers when he testified last week. Brothers said he was at the intersection of Hague and Steele in Columbus on July 6, 2003 when a young boy rode his bike into his car. Libbie gave a similar account, the only difference being he said it was his driver’s side door. Libbie didn’t talk to anyone about the accident because he said by the time he parked his car the boy and another person had already walked away.

An ambulance report on July 6, 2003 described the vehicle as a light green Mercury Sable, which Libbie said he was driving in 2003, and not a blue Dodge Neon like Brothers had rented that July. However Libbie said he believed the accident happened over Labor Day weekend and not the fourth of July weekend as Brothers testified. The ambulance report listed Libbie’s license plate and he was tracked down by detectives just last week. Gardina attacked Libbie’s memory and questioned whether he was actually involved in an accident or if it was someone he had loaned the car to.

The prosecution also called Eddie Harper Jr. to the stand where he testified that Brothers never offered and never paid for any of the funeral and burial costs for Joanie, Marques, Lyndsey, Marshall and Ernestine in 2003.

The defense implied in its questioning that Brothers had indeed helped pay for the services, but Harper said he never did and that when he spoke to him by phone in the days following the murders Brothers never gave a way to contact him. Harper said he applied for funeral cost support from the Victim-Witness Assistance Program. The funeral cost between $40,000 and $50,000 and the Harper family paid between $7,000 and $10,000 for the services themselves.

Also called to the stand Friday was Joanie and Ernestine Harper’s minister. Elmer Jackson Stewart, a minister at East Bakersfield Church of Christ testified about counseling Joanie Harper in April or May 2000 about her recent marriage to Vincent Brothers.

Stewart said Joanie told him two reasons why he left Brothers, that he had not informed her of a previous marriage and that there was infidelity during their marriage. Harper later applied for an annulment of the marriage in 2000, before remarrying Brothers in January 2003.

Bakersfield Police Sgt. Jeffrey Watts re-took the stand where he testified about seeing Troy Brothers at the courthouse twice during the week of April 16 thru the 20th. He also said he saw him in a car out in front of the courthouse. Troy Brothers was set to testify for the defense two weeks ago but instead Vincent Brothers took the stand, during which he gave Troy as someone who could confirm his alibi of driving to Missouri and not to Bakersfield on July 5, 2003 the day before the prosecution says the murders took place. The prosecution intended on calling Troy Brothers and subpoenaed him to do so this week but he did not show and an arrest warrant was issued for him.

Watts also testified about his and Det. Don Kruger’s interview with Tiana Brothers, Vincent’s niece and his brother Melvin’s daughter. Tiana testified, when she was called to the stand by the defense, that the detectives harassed her during questioning and that’s why she gave inconsistent and misleading statements to police. Prosecutor Lisa Green played the taped recording of the interview to contradict Tiana’s statements that she was harassed, Judge Michael Bush told jurors that they were to listen specifically to the tone used by the detectives.