SAN DIEGO -- The first Escondido police detective on the Stephanie Crowe murder scene in 1998 testified Wednesday that he saw no signs of forced entry into the family home the morning the 12-year-old's body was discovered.

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Videotaped Confession At Heart Of Testimony

Attorneys for transient Richard Tuite called Detective Barry Sweeney to the witness stand in Tuite's preliminary hearing to try to show that Stephanie's murder was "an inside job," carried out by the victim's older brother and two friends.

Tuite, 33, was seen knocking on doors asking for a person named "Tracy" in the Crowe neighborhood in rural Escondido the night before the victim's body was discovered.

Sweeney testified that he found no open windows or doors during a quick check of the Crowe residence the morning of Jan. 21, 1998.

"So what we've established is the house was indeed secure from the inside the night the crime was committed," defense attorney Brad Patton told reporters outside court.

Sweeney testified that he and a partner checked 15 areas around the Crowe home, but found no signs of a forced entry.

Most of the windows and sliding-glass doors had dirt and cobwebs on them, indicting they had not been used in a while, Sweeney testified.

He testified that Stephanie's father, Stephen Crowe, told him that the laundry room door that the family used as a main entrance to the home was locked with a deadbolt when he rushed out to meet paramedics.

Special Assistant Attorney General David Druliner asked Sweeney if he would be surprised by reports that the laundry room door was reportedly open after all of the Crowes had gone to bed the night before.

"(Stephen) wouldn't have said the deadbolt was locked if it wasn't locked," Sweeney told the prosecutor.

The preliminary hearing resumed after a weeklong delay giving prosecutors a chance to challenge Judge Gale Kaneshiro's ruling that Tuite's attorneys could present third-party culpability evidence pointing to Michael Crowe, Joshua Treadway and Aaron Houser as the girl's killers.

The teenagers were originally charged with the seventh-grader's murder, but those charges were dropped when a DNA test revealed Stephanie's blood on a filthy red shirt Tuite had on the night of the killing.

The case was turned over to the San Diego County Sheriff's Department and the state Attorney General's Office three years ago.

Patton began playing a portion of an 18-hour interrogation of Treadway by Escondido police after the girl's murder in which he details how he acted as the lookout at the Crowe house while Michael Crowe and Houser went into her bedroom and killed her.

A different judge ruled that most of the interrogation was coerced, but some of Treadway's statements were voluntary and would have been admissible at trial.

As the tape began, Treadway was escorted into the courtroom by prosecutors. He sat quietly, almost directly across from the stoic Tuite.

The preliminary hearing before Kaneshiro is intended to determine if there are grounds to order Tuite to stand trial for Stephanie's murder. He faces 27 years to life in prison if convicted.