There are several typos that I did not correct in this blog but it is one of those rip and read operations to get it posted fast. The issue of a train whistle is an important one that can easily be settled. Kelsey has posted on this thread at the beginning. She must have left Ft. Worth where she was working and apparently is going to school in Oregon City. She may staying with her grandmother there, who was one of the supposed targets.
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http://www.spokesman.com/blogs/siren...fense/#c293676
Sirens & Gavels
Steele’s daughter testifies in his defense
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Posted by Meghann
May 2, 2011 1:29 p.m.
Edgar Steele's 20-year-old daughter told jurors that she doesn't believe the recording of her father discussing a plot to kill her mother is authentic. Kesley Steele, a student at Clackamas Community College in Oregon City, said she recognizes her father's voice on parts of the recording but not others.
“The main thing that i noticed throughout it is it's just not the way that he talks,” she said.
She said she listened to the recordings several times and knows her mother “wanted to come up with her own conclusion…same with my brother and sister and myself.” Steele said she “grew up” in the barn where Steele and Fairfax reportedly had the conversation on the cording and said she'd never before heard a train whistle. Prosecutors provided phone records that show a train passes within a few miles of the area one per evening.
She said she knew of her father's work on the Russian bride scam but didn't talk about the details with him. “Getting into more details, it was not a huge common interest at the time,” she said. She said it the work was also a joke around the house.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Traci Whelan asked Kelsey Steele if she didn't want to bleieve that her father wanted her mother killed. “Of cousre I don't want to, and I don't,” she sad.
Whelan said Kesley Steele sent her father books in jail, at first using her money or hier mothers but soon using “donations from people who ebleived in my dad.” Whelan said Kelsey sometimes sent books and amgaines to her father that he didn't want, and he was sure to let her know she'd screwed up.
“He would let me now if I messed up,” Kelsey Steele said.
Also testifying today was a Sandpoint man who arrived at Edgar Steele's home for a trip to Spokane the day of Steele's arrest. Allen Banks told jurors he was familiar with the defendant's research into the Russian mail order bride scandal. Banks said he was visiting the Steele home once when “Ed called me over to the computer to see his Russian girlfriends.”
Banks said Cyndi Steele was present, and they looked at photos about five or six Ukrainian women “who had been contacted as part of a legal case.” The three laughed together as they discussed the case, Banks said. Banks said Steele was weak and disoriented after medical treatment for an aneurysm. He saw Steele led out of his Talache Road home in handcuffs June 11. “He was handcuffed with his hands behind his back, and his face looked puffy,” Banks said. He said he was surprised by the arrest
“Definitely, because it's completely out of character,” Banks said.
But prosecutors pointed out that Banks said Steele's health had improved by the day of his arrest. They also noted that Steele called Banks to set up the appointment June 9, which matches what he told Fairfax about setting up an alibi. Also testifying for the defense today was Sandpoint veterinarian Robert Stoll, who said the allegations against Steele are “completely out of character.” “Edgar is a sweet, kind man,” Stoll said. He has known the Steeles for years and testified briefly about the couple's peaceful relationship.
Cyndi Steele's best friend, Billie Elizabeth Cochran, also told jurors that she never witnesses or heard of spousal abuse in the 10 years she's known the couple. Cyndi Steele stayed at her home for after her husband's arrest because she was afraid to stay at their home.