While Gary Repp Jr. spent four months away from home training to be an Oregon State Police trooper, his wife told everyone how happy she was with him gone.

While Kerry Michele Repp was going out to nightclubs and spending the couple’s money, her husband was learning how to protect and investigate crime scenes.

While Kerry was having an affair with another man, conceiving his child, Repp was planning his strayed wife’s killing, said District Attorney Mark Huddleston.

Prosecuting Repp for murder, Huddleston’s opening arguments Wednesday in Jackson County Circuit Court painted Repp, 35, as a cold-blooded killer who believed he could fool police with a staged death scene and fake suicide note.

The crime would be carried out a week before Repp’s scheduled departure to Egypt with his Army National Guard unit.

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"On May 4, 2002, Gary Repp put (police) training to work, not to solve a crime but to commit one," Huddleston said.

But Repp’s defense team portrayed their client as a victim of the very brotherhood to which he belonged. Botched police work led to Repp’s arrest, said defense attorney Jeni Feinberg.

"You will probably be shocked by the quality of this investigation," she told jurors.

Attorneys for both sides will rely heavily on the timing of events that took place the Saturday morning when Kerry was found slain on her bed with Repp’s handgun in her right hand. A 9-1-1 call made from the Repp home at 8:23 a.m. will be key evidence for both the prosecution and defense.

The call sounds like a woman screaming accompanied by several popping sounds, Huddleston said. Dispatchers disconnected that call when they didn’t get a response on the line. In violation of police protocol, the dispatcher did not send officers to the home.

Kerry was alive when the call for help was made, but Repp and the children had already left the couple’s Hazel Street home in Central Point, Feinberg said. After taking the two boys to a Little League baseball field where Kerry’s oldest son was to have a team photo taken, Repp went to a campground where he had planned to meet his family for the weekend.

Huddleston’s witnesses place Repp’s hurried appearance at the baseball field up to 15 minutes later than defense witnesses. The route from the Repp home to the baseball field on Hanley Road takes just 5 minutes by car, Huddleston said.

Kerry’s absence that Saturday morning worried family and friends who had made plans with her the previous day. Repp said his wife was at home "doing the pregnant thing." After numerous phone calls to the Repp home went unanswered, Kerry’s father, Ron Johnson, went to check on her at around 1 p.m. that afternoon.

He found his 29-year-old daughter dead, her own blood soaking the plaid bed sheets and her light blue pajamas. She had been shot four times, in the head, chin, neck and chest.

Etched in Kerry’s blood, a nearly invisible footprint links the crime to her husband, Huddleston said. Investigators discovered the impression of a bare foot, which appears to match Repp’s, halfway under the edge of the couple’s bed. Also found under the bed, the cordless phone used to dial 9-1-1 revealed Kerry’s blood and fragments of her teeth.

However, not a speck of blood was seen on Repp when he left the couple’s home, Feinberg said. Not a trace of blood could be found on his clothing, shoes or wedding ring when police analyzed those items, she said. Detectives looked long and hard for any effort to show that the killer cleaned up in the Repp home, but that evidence just didn’t exist, she added.

Kerry’s wedding ring was left on the kitchen counter along with a note to Repp apologizing for having hurt him. An e-mail suicide note sent at 8:15 a.m. from Kerry’s Hotmail e-mail account to her mother, JoeAnn Johnson, also was sent to Repp’s Hotmail account, Huddleston said.

Although prosecutors have no direct evidence that Repp possessed the password for his wife’s e-mail account, a National Guard computer accessed both Repp’s and Kerry’s e-mail accounts the day before the murder. Details of the electronic message have yet to be revealed, but those who knew Kerry would say she didn’t compose the message, Huddleston said.

The first witnesses to Kerry’s murder scene are expected to testify as the trial continues today in Medford.

Reach reporter Sarah Lemon at 776-4487, or e-mail slemon@mailtribune.com