LOS ANGELES -- Lawyers for the man accused of killing the longtime mistress to presidential confidant Alfred Bloomingdale say they are trying to force White House adviser Edwin Meese to testify at the murder trial.
'We are trying to subpoena Meese to be a witness but haven't served it on him yet,' attorney Charles Mathews said outside court Friday. 'We're having trouble finding him. I haven't seen much of him recently, have you?'
Marvin Pancoast, 34, has pleaded innocent and innocent by reason of insanity to charges he beat Miss Morgan to death last July with a baseball bat.
Pancoast confessed to killing Miss Morgan in a taped statement played for the jury Friday, but the defense maintains the former model was killed by someone else because she had videotapes showing her with Bloomingdale and government officials at sex orgies.
The defense wanted Meese, the attorney general-nominee whose name was previously mentioned in defense subpoenas to the FBI and CIA, to testify about any knowledge he may have about Miss Morgan or the purported tapes.
Washington lawyer Leonard Garment, who represents Meese, told United Press International the implication that Meese knows anything about the alleged tapes or Miss Morgan's slaying was 'totally ridiculous.'
'But we can't prevent them from making statements and demands - however farfetched,' he said.
Asked if Meese would testify if legally summoned, Garment replied, 'If they serve a subpeona, we'll deal with it in compliance with the law.'
Co-defense counsel Arthur Barens said he can prove the tapes exist but refused to say if he could or would produce them. Prosecutors say the tapes do not exist.
In the taped confession, Pancoast tearfully described his actions the night of July 7, 1983, when Miss Morgan was beaten to death with a blunt object the prosecution claims was her teenage son's baseball bat.
'I went downstairs. ... I grabbed the baseball bat and took the belt off the bathrobe I've been wearing and I was going to strangle her.
'I dropped it (the belt) somewhere. I just waited an hour and 45 minutes. I just walked in. I got the lighting just right and walked in and just started hitting her. I hit her enough times in the head so she'd go to sleep.'
An investigator asked Pancoast what he meant by 'go to sleep' and he answered, 'Go to sleep, so she wouldn't complain any more. She wanted to die.'
