An eventful afternoon

My head hurts. The dog handler is all over the place. Let me start from the beginning, well since 2 p.m. The defense argued, without the jury there, that Roy McNeil was changing his testimony and testifying to evidence they have not heard before. That was unfair because the defense said it would not have time to investigate and find out if the information is accurate. The defense asked the judge instruct the juror to disregard all of McNeil’s testimony heard so far. The prosecution argued that McNeil’s testimony was a matter that could be available for cross-examination and should not be struck from the record. The judge agreed. He said if the witness gives conflicting testimony, the defense should bring it up during cross-examination.
That’s just what the defense is trying to do. Robert Campbell asked McNeil if he sometimes shared beer with his dog. McNeil replied that he was not supposed to talk about Kolby. Campbell asked again if he told the court during the May 13 mini-hearing if he sometimes drank with his dogs. McNeil said the dog sometimes get back wash out of a can. The exchanges started heating up then. Campbell asked about the moonshine auctioned off at the training seminars McNeil attends. At first McNeil said no sir, he wasn’t aware of that. Then he said he knew moonshine was auctioned off but he did not take part in that and absolutely not did he give his dog moonshine.
Then we get into the big ordeal about the records. According to an email McNeil sent the DA’s office, there were some records in Clyde, N.C., that he could not get to because those were N.C. Search and Rescue records, not his. Then out of the blue, he says the records were destroyed by Hurricane Ivan. Where did that come from? So now, McNeil’s records have been destroyed twice, once by Hurricane Ivan and then without the last month or two when heavy rains came through his home.
Now, they are discussing a diagram and email McNeil sent about the search around the front-end loader. In a May email, McNeil reportedly said an alert was made around the tractor. McNeil testified that was a mistake. They were getting into that at the break… I hope this doesn’t confuse y’all. I’m trying to make sense of it.
I will say that McNeil did testify that his dogs made a trained alert (of decomposing scent) around a tree in a wooded area near the Anderson farm, in the toolbox and at the truck. That was also shown on the video viewed by the jurors. I’ll be back.