Longo trial takes a break as new evidence emerges.

Byline: Bill Bishop The Register-Guard

NEWPORT - The trial of confessed killer Christian Michael Longo abruptly recessed Wednesday afternoon and will not reconvene until next Wednesday as defense lawyers analyze new evidence turned over to them by prosecutors.

The nature of the new evidence was not revealed in court. Lawyers for both sides declined to comment about it. Lincoln County Circuit Judge Robert Huckleberry has ordered the lawyers not to talk publicly about the case during the trial.

Testimony earlier Wednesday gave no hint about the new evidence prosecutors intend to use in Longo's trial. The law requires prosecutors to turn over to defense lawyers all the evidence they will use in a case. Normally, all the information is provided well before trial.

After 45 minutes of meeting in the the judge's chambers, defense attorney Steven Krasik asked Huckleberry for more time to analyze the new information, saying only that it is "intertwined" in the case and affects a number of witnesses whom he did not name.

"It requires a considerable amount of time to digest, to respond to," Krasik told the judge.

Huckleberry said the trial has been moving quicker than expected and the additional time should still bring the first phase of the case to a close by April 7, as originally planned.

A second phase of the trial will follow, during which the jury will hear additional evidence and determine a sentence. Longo already faces a potential death penalty after pleading guilty to killing his wife, MaryJane, 34, and youngest child, Madison 2.

The jury is hearing evidence that he also killed daughter Sadie, 3, and son Zachery, 4. Longo maintains innocence in their deaths, but his legal defense and version of the case has not yet come out in trial.

Wednesday's key testimony came from police divers who found Sadie Longo's body under the Highway 34 bridge over Lint Slough near Waldport on Dec. 22, 2001 - three days after Zachery's body was found floating in the slough about 150 yards from the bridge.

Longo, 29, held his head down and appeared to avoid looking at photos of Sadie's body soon after it was pulled from the water.

John Fels, a retired Benton County detective and master diver, told jurors the Highway 34 bridge was a logical place to start looking for evidence concerning Zachery's death.

John Chilcote, another Benton County sheriff's master diver, testified that he found a dark-colored comforter in about 9 feet of water underneath the bridge. The blanket had been weighted down with a rock.

Prosecutors have said a strip torn from the cloth was found among Longo family photos, women's and children's clothing, toys and other items discarded in a trash bin at a motel where the Longos lived in Newport.

Fels said he found Sadie's body soon after Chilcote found the blanket. Around her right ankle, someone had tied a pillowcase containing a rock. The rock had a different appearance from any other rocks found around the slough, Fels said.