Detectives Say Dibartolo Sought Details About Probe

Detectives testifying in the Tom DiBartolo murder trial Thursday described phone calls he made to them looking for details about the investigation of his wife’s murder.

Among the questions DiBartolo asked them was what he could do to clear himself as a suspect in Patty DiBartolo’s death, one detective testified.

Police detectives Cal Walker and Roger Bays told jurors they each received a number of phone calls from DiBartolo after the murder last Nov. 2 of Patty DiBartolo in Lincoln Park on Spokane’s South Hill.

The detectives’ testimony came during a day when prosecutors presented an assortment of circumstantial evidence they say shows DiBartolo planned his wife’s murder and then made up a story about being attacked by two men.

On Nov. 8, Walker said DiBartolo called him to revise comments he made in a hospital interview the morning after the shooting. Originally, DiBartolo said the gunman who shot his wife and wounded him in the abdomen wasn’t wearing gloves during the attack.

When he called on Nov. 8, DiBartolo insisted the gunman wore two-tone gloves, Walker said.

On Nov. 13, DiBartolo called Detective Bays to tell him he’d been retracing the route he took to drive his wife to Sacred Heart Medical Center after the shooting. Bays said he was told by DiBartolo that he was looking for the exact spot in the park where his wife died.

“He told me he had to ‘feel where she had let go,’ that night,” Bays told jurors.

On Nov. 20, DiBartolo phoned Walker and said he hoped to return to work as a sheriff’s deputy within weeks. Saying that administrators had to first approve his return, DiBartolo asked Walker “what did he need to do to be cleared as a suspect.”

DiBartolo called Walker again on Nov. 27, and said he’d heard from “a friend” that his van had been severely damaged the night of the shooting. Walker told jurors he felt DiBartolo was expecting him to summarize any evidence on the van that might implicate the murderer.

Defense attorney Maryann Moreno tried to undermine the suggestion by Walker that DiBartolo was calling to get information about what police investigators were thinking.

Didn’t you tell the defendant to call when he could offer information? Moreno asked.

Walker acknowledged police detectives did tell DiBartolo to call “anytime he needed anything.”

In other testimony Thursday, a sketch artist said she spent several hours creating a drawing of the gunman DiBartolo said shot his wife.

But while doing the sketch, she said she drew facial details that were different from DiBartolo’s suggestions.

“I made changes to test for accuracy of his memory,” said Idaho artist Carrie Parks. Parks worked on the sketch on Nov. 14 - almost two weeks after the murder.

Even then, she said DiBartolo looked at the finished sketch and ranked it 9.5 on a scale of 10.

“He called it an excellent likeness,” Parks said.

In two weeks, when Moreno begins her defense, another sketch artist is expected to testify that Parks deviated from standard procedure by modifying details of the drawing to test DiBartolo’s memory.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos (1 Color)

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: TODAY Testimony will focus on the gunshot burn found on DiBartolo’s body and statements from DiBartolo family members.