Fisk trial: from witness to suspect

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - Joseph Saur figured a hunter had fallen out of a tree stand when his wife woke him up just after 7 a.m. on October 6, 2008.

After all, it was bow season.

So Saur headed to where the anxious man tried to flag down his wife while she drove the kids to school near the 14000 block of Beardsell Road in Northern Kent County's Oakfield Township.

But when Saur found Robert Fisk, he didn't find the emergency he expected.

"He might have said something about going to work, or hitchhiking and got a ride with these people," Saur testified during the second day of Fisk's murder trial. He's accused of murdering Robert and Norma Bean. "He didn't know them. They started arguing and this guy just shot someone. He said, 'Why did you shoot my wife?' Things like that."

Police arrived at the scene and started questioning Fisk. But the more he talked, the more investigators say his story changed. First he told the hitchhiking story - that Tim Stephan picked Fisk up hitch hiking.

Stephan pleaded guilty to the murders and was sentenced in April 2009.

Later, Fisk told investigators to have only heard the murders while walking near the scene.

"I could not get a straight answer out of him," said Michigan State Police Trooper Paul Metiva, one of many county and state officers called to the scene.

As Fisk continued to talk, it became apparent to detectives that Fisk was, in fact, involved in the shooting.

Fisk was taken to the Kent County Jail in a video-equipped patrol car. But this time, it wasn't what he said that was incriminating. It's what he pulled out of his pocket. Detectives say it was the mask he wore when he shot Norma Bean.

Fisk's attorney, Damian Nunzio, suggested to one witness that Fisk may have simply been nervous because he thought the killer might return.

Nunzio made this suggestion after cross-examining MSP trooper Metiva. Nunzio wanted to know if Fisk's nervousness could "have anything to do with (Fisk's) frustration?"

But before the trooper could answer, Judge Dennis Lieber upheld a prosecution objection that the line of questioning was argumentative.

Before testimony concluded for the day, Stephan's mother took the stand and said she found a note that police missed during the search of Stephan's home. The note was in his handwriting and included the instructions, "Money, all of it or I'll shoot you. If there's not enough, we'll use ATM...duct tape and gun."

The trial resumes Monday.

24 Hour News 8 will continue to follow this trial.

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