The whereabouts of a former Las Vegas Democratic politician around the time a veteran investigative journalist was brutally stabbed to death remains a key question in the ex-official’s murder trial – and a newly unearthed text message shrouds mystery to the defendants alibi as he continues to plead his innocence and contest DNA evidence linking him to the crime.
Robert Telles, 47, is on trial for killing journalist Jeff German, who had penned critical stories about the official, and the defendant faced tough questioning during cross-examination on Thursday where the prosecutor presented him with a surprise text message sent from his wife that had vanished from his phone.
Telles, a former Democratic Clark County administrator of estates, read out a text message from his wife, showing that she had wondered where he was around the time German was ambushed and killed outside his home nearly two years ago.
DEM VEGAS POLITICIAN ACCUSED OF JOURNALIST MURDER TESTIFIES: 'UNEQUIVOCALLY I'M INNOCENT'
"It says, ‘Where are you?’" Telles said, in response to prosecutor Christopher Hamner.
Telles testified earlier that he had ignored several text, email and voice messages while he was at home, and gone for a walk and then to a gym the day German was killed. Prosecutors have suggested that he had left the phone at home as he executed a meticulously planned fatal attack on the journalist.
Hamner zeroed in on cellphone records presented Wednesday by a defense witness that included no listing of the text from Telles' wife. The prosecutor said it was found on her Apple Watch device, and that the message had been deleted from Telles' phone.
Telles said he had been in possession of the phone all day and that he had had the ability to save and delete messages. He did not admit that he had deleted the message.
Hamner noted the time — 10:30 a.m. on Sept. 2, 2022 — was the time security video presented earlier to the jury showed a maroon SUV that Telles had agreed looked just like his, was in German’s neighborhood. It was driven by a person wearing an orange outfit and a big straw hat. Telles himself referred several times Thursday to that person as German’s killer.
Telles said on the stand that a professional assassin stabbed German to death. He has accused a real estate firm of being behind the murder in order to frame him for trying to fight corruption that he saw in his office.
German was found slashed and stabbed to death in a side yard outside his home, where Telles is accused in a criminal complaint of "lying in wait" for German to come outside.
Telles was arrested days later after police circulated video of a person wearing an orange work shirt and a wide-brimmed straw hat toting a shoulder bag and walking toward German’s home.
Prosecutors say they have strong evidence, including DNA believed to be from Telles found beneath German’s fingernails and cut-up pieces of a straw hat and shoes found at Telles' house that resembled those worn by the person seen on video outside German's home.
Telles did not dispute that his DNA had been found beneath German’s fingernails but suggested that it may have been planted there. Autopsy photos show knife or slash marks on German’s arms that police said stemmed from German’s fight for his life. Telles said he did not know how the cut-up pieces of a straw hat and shoes had turned up in his home.
"So you hold the DNA labs in on it, too?" Hamner said.
"I don't know. I don't know at what point. I don't know what point the sample was collected," Telles responded.
"Sir, please tell us, jury. How in the world does your DNA get underneath Mr. German's fingernails?" Hamner replied.
"I don't know, because I did not kill Mr. German," Telles said.
Hamner acknowledged that two key pieces of evidence were never found: The orange work shirt and the knife used to attack German. He wondered why people who had been out to frame Telles would have left them out of the evidence inventory.
"Why wouldn’t they put the murder weapon in your house?" Hamner asked. "Does that make any sense?"
"I don’t know," Telles responded.
On Monday the jury heard that Telles had hundreds of photos of German’s home and neighborhood on his cell phone and computer.
Other photos taken from Telles' devices included an image of a single gray athletic shoe with a distinctive black pattern and a shot of Telles' work computer at the Clark County Public Administrator and Guardian office with results of internet searches through a password-protected site that retrieved German’s name, home address, vehicle registration and date of birth.
Hamner noted previously to jurors that the photo had been taken Aug. 23, 2022 — less than two weeks before he was found dead in a pool of blood.
Police also released images of a distinctive maroon SUV like one that a Review-Journal photographer had seen Telles washing outside his home several days after the killing. It had been driven by a person wearing an orange outfit and a big straw hat.
Both sides said they expect closing arguments to come Monday, two weeks after jury selection began.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
