MEISTER TRIAL: Victim's father takes the stand

Three years before she was murdered, Tonya Hart's father told her boyfriend if he ever hurt his daughter he would "come and get him."

Barry Hart's testimony wrapped up the second week in David Meister's first-degree murder trial.

Meister, 28, is accused of shooting Tonya Hart in the face and chest on Dec. 11, 2001, killing her instantly. Prosecutors say he was paid $1,100 for the killing by Hart's boyfriend, Jesse "Shorty" Linderman.

When questioned by Latah County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Michelle Evans on Friday, Barry Hart said he warned Linderman about hurting Tonya three or four times, even though he'd never said anything like that to her other boyfriends.

"Why did you say it to Shorty?" Evans asked.

"Because I didn't trust him as far as I could spit," Hart replied.

Linderman was called to the stand Thursday, but declined to answer any questions on the advice of his attorney. He was charged with conspiracy to commit murder after Meister confessed to the killing back in 2002, but the charges were dropped for lack of evidence once Meister recanted.

Meister was found guilty of the murder in a 2003 trial, but the conviction was later thrown out by the Idaho Supreme Court, in part because his attorneys weren't allowed to pursue the idea that someone else was responsible for the shooting.

Defense attorney Scott Chapman briefly cross-examined Hart on Friday, suggesting that at one time he "thought Shorty was good for Tonya."

"At one time you were OK with that relationship, right?" Chapman asked.

"As OK as a father could be," Hart replied. "But when you say you're going to come and get him, the only reason a father would say something like that is out of total desperation."

Hart acknowledged that he'd been a heavy drinker in the years before and after his daughter was murdered, and said he didn't remember a lot of that time very clearly.

That was a common theme Friday, when several of Meister's former co-workers and neighbors were called as witnesses. Ten years after the fact, most had difficulty remembering specific details, such as what time they came into work the day Hart was killed, who was working that day, how long Meister's hair was or what exactly Linderman said about his girlfriend.

When asked to identify his former co-worker in the courtroom, one witness even mistook a county jailer for Meister.

Testimony will resume at 9 a.m. Monday in the Latah County Courthouse. Before recessing for the weekend, Judge Carl Kerrick admonished jurors not to discuss the case with anyone or read or watch any of the media coverage. He indicated the trial was still on track to conclude sometime around Nov. 17.

William L. Spence may be contacted at bspence@lmtribune.com or (208) 791-9168.