FATHER SHOT MOTHER, GIRL TESTIFIES ON TAPE.Byline: Janet Gilmore Daily News Staff Writer More than a year ago at the Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. County civil courthouse, 6-year-old Lisa Zelig's piercing screams signaled that something was horribly wrong. Her father had shot her mother. On Tuesday, the little girl's voice filled another court, this time as a witness for the prosecution as her father, a Woodland Hills doctor, stands trial for the Sept. 1, 1995, murder of Eileen Zelig. The Los Angeles Superior Court jury listened intently to a tape recorded phone interview that prosecutors conducted with the Chatsworth girl, who now lives on the East Coast with her siblings and maternal grandparents grandparents npl → abuelos mpl grandparents grand npl → grands-parents mpl grandparents grand npl . ``Do you remember what happened?'' asked Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Steven Slavitt. ``Mom and dad were talking,'' the girl said quickly. ``We were going up the escalator escalator Moving staircase used as transportation between floors or levels in stores, airports, subways, and other mass pedestrian areas. The name was first applied to a moving stairway shown at the Paris Exposition of 1900. and the gunfire went off, and then the police came and they took my mom to the hospital.'' ``Did you see who made the shot?'' Slavitt asked. ``Yeah,'' Lisa answered. ``My dad.'' Lisa testified that she was with her mother that day because she had asked to tag along tag along Verb to accompany someone, esp. when uninvited: I tagged along behind the gang Verb 1. , curious to see the courthouse. The girl's parents had been in and out of court for months as they battled over alimony alimony, in law, allowance for support that an individual pays to his or her former spouse, usually as part of a divorce settlement. It is based on the common law right of a wife to be supported by her husband, but in the United States, the Supreme Court in 1979 and child support payments. Zelig's attorney contends that the killing was not premeditated pre·med·i·tat·ed adj. Characterized by deliberate purpose, previous consideration, and some degree of planning: a premeditated crime. , but the lesser crime of second-degree murder or manslaughter. Attorney Ed Rucker contends Zelig snapped after his ex-wife quietly taunted and insulted him as they walked through the courthouse. But Lisa testified that her parents were talking in a normal tone that day, and her father was some 10 feet away when he pulled a gun from his suit. On Tuesday, as his little girl's voice filled the courtroom, Harry Zelig sat stoicly at the defense table. He pulled off his glasses and began to slowly rub his eyes as Lisa explained the distance between her mother and father during the shooting. Lisa initially recited the event in a rush of words and a trembling trembling visible muscle tremor caused by fever, fear, weakness, electrolyte imbalance, especially hypocalcemia and hypomagnesemia, and neuromuscular disease. trembling disease voice but she spoke clearly and calmly, as if reciting an incident on a school playground. She said she didn't recall what her parents had talked about, or exactly what happened moments after her father ran up the escalators after opening fire. What Lisa did recall was her mother's screams and her own. |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion