Fred Cooper is on trial in the Gateway murder case.

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Steve and Michelle Andrews, the couple that was killed in December 2005 in the Gateway community in Fort Myers.

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The trial of Fred Cooper in the Gateway murder case continued Tuesday in Lee County Circuit court. Here is a blog from the courtroom:

4:35 p.m.

Records from the gated community Village Walk where Fred Cooper lived in Bonita Springs in December of 2005 show that the barcode assigned to him was used to access the gate twice on Dec. 27, 2005.

The first time was at 3:01 a.m. The second time was at 3:28 p.m.

The gate access system does not record when residents leave; only when they enter.

3:10 p.m.

William Kalstrom, a detective with the Lee County Sheriff's Office, took the witness stand next.

He arrived at the Andrewses' home in Gateway at about 8 a.m. Dec. 27, 2005. He helped with a neighborhood canvass, then helped interview Kellie Ballew that afternoon.

From what Ballew told him, he said, Fred Cooper was the next person investigators wanted to talk to.

"It became quite clear Fred would become someone of interest in this case," Kalstrom said.

When Cooper came to the main Sheriff's Office off Six Mile Cypress later than day at Ballew's request, they went to talk in a small, square interview room with bare walls, a table and a few chairs.

"Mr. Cooper came down voluntarily," Kalstrom said. Cooper did not appear to be under the influence of any drugs or alcohol, he said, and Cooper gave a taped statement for about an hour and a half.

Prosecutor Anthony Kunasek asked if Cooper said during that statement what he was doing between 10:30 p.m. and midnight on Dec. 26, 2005.

"He said he was tinkering with his motorcycle in his garage," Kalstrom said.

After Cooper gave his statement, Kalstrom then followed him and Ballew back to their home in Bonita Springs. He said he searched the home, looking for a weapon and for a camouflage jacket.

Later, after researching what the bar codes at the entrance gate for community where Cooper lived might show, Kalstrom went back to search Cooper's home more thoroughly. He also saw when Ballew turned over e-mails and gave a sample that could be used to test her DNA.

2:37 p.m.

Sheri Dunaske, a crime scene technician with the Lee County Sheriff's Office, took the stand Tuesday afternoon and described how she and other technicians searched the bodies of Michelle and Steven Andrews for fingerprints.

She didn't find any.

She also described searching Cooper's home in Bonita Springs on Dec. 29, 2005. She collected a black T-shirt, a pair of men's Wrangler jeans and black Adidas tennis shoes from the townhouse Cooper shared with his girlfriend Kellie Ballew in the Village Walk community. Later, she searched Cooper's motorcycle.

12:22 p.m.

Gateway resident Al Lukomski was leaving for work between 6:30 and 7 a.m. on Dec. 27, 2005.

He testified that he was waiting at the exit gate of his community that morning when a man walked by his truck. The man passed him about three or four feet away, walking through the gate into the community.

"The person was bundled up. It was a cool morning," he said. "I tried to look to see who it was, and they didn't look at me."

He could see the man, he said, because it was light enough that he didn't need headlights to drive.

The man had a backpack and what appeared to be a goatee.

"I couldn't see his face very well. He was dressed up in a camouflage jacket," Lukomski said.

He tried to catch the man's eye, but the man kept looking straight ahead.

"I thought it was odd. Most folks in the neighborhood would look at you," he said.

A little after 7 a.m. that morning, a 911 call brought authorities to the home of Michelle and Steven Andrews. Their bodies were found inside their bedroom.

--

Doug Jimmo, a former resident of Gateway, was a neighbor of the Andrewses in 2005. He testified about seeing a man he didn't recognize wearing a camouflage jacket walking past him about 25 to 30 feet away a little before 7 a.m. Dec. 27, 2005.

He was later shown a photo lineup by Detective Walter Ryan. Jimmo said the man he saw looked like the man in the third photo, but he wrote at the time that he could not be positive.

In the courtroom Tuesday, Jimmo pointed to Fred Cooper as looking like the man he had seen that morning.

Both Jimmo and Lukomski said they were familiar with different types of camouflage, and described the type of jacket they saw as not military-style camouflage. Lukomski said it was the type of camouflage good for hunting in this part of the state, as the style was meant to blend in with pine trees and oak trees.

11:24 a.m.

Three teenagers who spent part of their holidays from school together in 2005 testified Tuesday morning about a man they saw in the Gateway neighborhood.

The night of Dec. 26, 2005, Ben Potter, Colin Baird and Ryan McCurdy had been hanging out watching movies at Potter's house.

About 10:45 p.m., they left to walk Baird home.

When Potter went out the front door of his home, he said he saw a white man with a camouflage jacket and a shaved head about 7 or 8 feet away from him.

"I had just walked out the screen door," Potter said. "He looked at me and then turned and put his hood up and continued to walk."

He had "a little hair on his chin," Potter said. "I made eye contact and looked at him for a few seconds."

The next morning, his mother woke him up to tell him that their neighbors, Michelle and Steven Andrews, had been found dead in their home.

Fred Cooper, 30, is on trial facing two counts of first degree murder in connection with their deaths.

On cross examination, Cooper's defense attorney Ken Garber questioned how much attention the boys were paying to the man they saw that night.

"You didn't really remember what his face looked like, did you?" Garber asked. Potter agreed with that.

Potter's friends all gave similar descriptions of the man they saw.

"I could tell you he was a white male around 6 feet tall. Really short hair," Baird, now 17, said. "As I walked out, he was turning away and putting his hood up."

At the time, Baird would have been 14. His friends were 15.

Baird said he saw the man for "two or three seconds."

McCurdy, who didn't notice the man until he was near an entrance gate to the neighborhood, said he just got a "glance."

"He was almost six foot, white male wearing a camo hooded jacket and a backpack," McCurdy said.