LOS ANGELES -- Defense attorneys today will tell jurors their version of the slaying of model Vicki Morgan, who was killed before she could finish the memoirs of her life as the mistress of presidential crony Alfred Bloomingdale.
The prosecution rested its case Tuesday against Marvin Pancoast, a 34-year-old former talent agency clerk who shared a condominium with Miss Morgan, who made national headlines when she filed a palimony suit against the late Bloomingdale.
Defense attorneys Arthur Barens and Charles Mathews claim that despite several confessions Pancoast has made someone else actually beat Miss Morgan to death July 7, 1983, because of videotapes allegedly showing high government officials in sex acts with the model.
They claim police botched the investigation and may even have deliberately destroyed evidence that would have cleared Pancoast, who has pleaded innocent and innocent by reason of insanity. Specifically, the defense has concentrated on the baseball bat prosecutors say Pancoast used to 'make her go to sleep.'
Forensic experts called by both sides have testified that when police put the bat into a plastic bag rather than a paper one, the resulting humidity probably destroyed fingerprint, hair and blood evidence. No prints were found on the bat, and all the experts could say about the blood was that it was human.
The prosecution also called writer Gordon Basichis, who was helping Miss Morgan with the memoirs, but he was not allowed to name any names - other than Bloomingdale's -- of people appearing in the book.
The defense claims Basichis, who admitted having an affair with Miss Morgan, had more of a motive to kill her than did Pancoast. Basichis' wife told the jury her husband was home the night of the slaying.
