SAN DIEGO -- The brother of 12-year-old Stephanie Crowe told police he was "positive" he killed his sister but couldn't provide details, a lawyer for a transient charged with the girl's murder said Wednesday.

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In his opening statement of Richard Tuite's trial, attorney Brad Patton said Michael Crowe, then 14, hated his sister for constantly stealing the spotlight and causing his peers to refer to him as "Stephanie's brother."

Patton played a clip of a Jan. 23, 1998, videotape in which Michael Crowe told Escondido detectives his rage against his younger sibling led to her murder.

"All I know is I'm positive I killed her," Michael Crowe said on the tape.

The victim's brother told detectives he "hated his family" and made up his own fantasy world with three mythological characters to help him deal with his strife.

"This is all going on in your head?" a detective asked during the interrogation.

"Yeah," the teenager responded.

"Wow, I'm impressed," the detective answered.

Michael Crowe said in the post-arrest interrogation that he had hellish nightmares in which people were killed and slaughtered.

The youth said he was unsure what happened the night his sister was killed.

"I don't know what I did," Crowe said.

Michael said he only trusted his good friend Joshua Treadway, who later gave police elaborate details of the killing, which he said involved himself, Michael Crowe and Aaron Houser.

Houser told police Michael was "antisocial, emotionally dead," wore all black and had a hit-list of people he wanted to kill, Patton told the seven women and five men of the jury.

The three boys originally were arrested in connection with Stephanie's murder. But the District Attorney's Office dismissed the charges, when just before trial, the victim's blood was found on a red sweat shirt Tuite was wearing the night of Jan. 20, 1998. Her family found Stephanie dead the next morning.

Two years ago, prosecutors from the state Attorney General's Office charged Tuite, 34, with the girl's murder.

Stephanie's blood also was found on a white undershirt Tuite wore the night she was killed.

In his opening statement Tuesday, Deputy Attorney General Jim Dutton told the jury the murder couldn't have happened the way Michael Crowe and Josh Treadway told detectives.

Dutton said the boys were pressured during long interrogations to admit to things they didn't do.

An expert on interrogations and confessions will tell jurors what can lead to "persuaded, false confessions," Dutton said.

Special Assistant Attorney General David Druliner said Tuite, a diagnosed schizophrenic, had an "obsession" to find an ex-girlfriend named Tracy and stalked and harassed other girls who looked like Stephanie.

Druliner said Tuite was seen in the area of the Crowe family home in rural Escondido the night Stephanie was killed.