SARASOTA, Fla. — In the weeks that followed Joseph Smith's arrest, tape recorders were whirling as the suspect in Carlie Brucia's rape and murder told his brother and his mother that he was high on drugs when he accidentally attacked the 11-year-old girl.

Auto mechanic Joseph Smith never actually described what happened on the night of Feb. 1, 2004, but what he did say — and the emotion in his voice — provided some powerful ammunition for prosecutors trying to send him to death row.

"Oh, Mama," Smith said, beginning a collect phone call from prison on Feb. 10, 2004, 10 days after Carlie was abducted, raped and strangled.

"Oh, Joe. The best thing you can do is try to explain it was an accident," Patricia Davis, Smith's mother, said during that conversation.

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"It was an accident, Mom. You don't think I'd do that on purpose, do you?" Smith said, his voice full of emotion.

In another conversation, Smith told his brother John to give an unidentified woman a message.

"Tell her what happened, the drugs and everything. I didn't mean to do it," Smith said.

Prosecutors contend the "it" was Carlie's abduction and murder. Police were led to the body by John Smith, who told officers his brother gave him the information during a jailhouse phone call.

In a call on Feb. 29, 2004, John Smith informed his brother that the case was getting more attention from the media and advised him to prepare for a "long, drawn-out trial."

"It's going to be something," John Smith said, adding that he'd have to testify.

"What do you mean you'd be testifying? You'd be testifying against me?" Joseph Smith asked. "You don't know anything, though."

But John Smith did know something, prosecutors say. They called an FBI cryptology analyst to the stand Tuesday to decipher a coded message Joseph Smith allegedly sent his brother several weeks after the killing.

Although the letter appeared to be just numbers and mathematical symbols, when deciphered, the symbols formed a message when read from bottom to top, right to left, according to analyst Daniel Olson.

"I wish I had something juicy to say," Joseph Smith wrote, according to Olson. "... the backpack and clothes went in four different Dumpsters ... I dragged the body to where it was found. Destroy this after deciphering it and shut up."

Police believe Smith was referring to Carlie's pink knapsack and some garments, which were never located. Another witness previously testified that scrapes on Carlie's right side suggested she was unconscious or deceased when she was dragged to the church grounds, where her body was found after five days of searching.

Prosecutors claim Smith all but confessed in his last meeting with his brother on March 14, 2004. John Smith was feeling bad about his brother's plight, and Joseph Smith told him to stop agonizing over it.

"I did it. I tripped up," he said. "I did coke. You didn't do anything, so don't feel bad."

Defense lawyers had no questions for the cryptology analyst or witnesses called to authenticate the tapes, which were entered into evidence over legal objections.

Assistant Public Defender Adam Tebrugge did spend considerable time Tuesday, however, questioning the validity of an FBI analyst's conclusion that Joseph Smith's DNA was found in a semen stain on Carlie Brucia's shirt.

Tebrugge worked to discredit the FBI forensic laboratory, which was revamped in 1997 and again in 2004 after investigators from the U.S. Justice Department questioned lab protocols. One lab analyst was prosecuted for falsifying reports and intentionally ignoring procedures designed to ensure results were accurate.

The trial is being broadcast by Court TV and streamed on the Web by Court TV Extra.

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