ELYRIA, Ohio — Jurors saw a videotaped police interrogation Friday in which capital murder defendant Nicole Diar told investigators that she believed the son she is accused of killing may have started the fatal fire in her home.

"I won't swear he did it," an increasingly emotional and nervous Diar told the two Lorain police detectives in the first part of the interview played for the jury.

Diar made the statement after Detective John Garcia and another officer confronted the 30-year-old woman about the cause of the fire an hour into the approximately three-hour interview.

"I don't think it was arson, I think it was an accident ... He was an inquisitive boy."

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The interrogation video and a half-hour audiotaped interview with Garcia only hours after her 4-year-old son Jacob's body was found on a mattress next to his puppy may be the only chance jurors have to see and hear Diar's version of what happened on Aug. 27, 2003. Her defense lawyers have indicated they are uncertain whether Diar will take the stand in the remaining days of the trial.

Prosecutors say Diar murdered Jacob, then lit the fire to cover up any evidence. Earlier this week a coroner told jurors that a lack of carbon monoxide in the child's lungs meant he was dead before the flames consumed his body.

Because Jacob was under the age of 13 when he was allegedly killed, Diar faces a possible sentence of death by lethal injection if she is convicted of his murder.

While several witnesses for the prosecution testified that Diar was strangely emotionless, if not nonchalant about the death of her only child, in the audiotaped interview with Garcia, Diar cries and seems disoriented.

Garcia said he interviewed Diar as she lay in bed beneath a blanket only hours after she was released from the hospital on Aug. 27, 2003.

In the barely audible interview, Diar can be heard telling Garcia that she woke up to a wall of thick black smoke and rushed out of the house after she was unable to find her son.

It is in the videotaped interrogation several days later, however, that Diar more lucidly explains how she tried to find Jacob and his puppy in the moments she realized her house was on fire.

Diar also talks about her own history as a severe burn victim, her volunteer work with the Cleveland Fire Department on fire prevention, and how Jacob loved his week-old puppy named Diamond.

She tells detectives that, because she thought she would not be able to have a child because of her severe burn injuries, the birth of Jacob was like a miracle.

"My son was my whole life for 4 and a half years," she said.

She too was 4 years old when she narrowly escaped a house fire.

"The same tragedy happened twice in the same family," Diar said.

Judge Kosma Glavas cut the day's testimony short before jurors were able to hear the two detectives attempt to get Diar to admit that she accidentally killed Jacob and then set the fire. During opening statements, Diar's attorney, Jack Bradley, spoke about that moment and said his client maintained her innocence throughout the interview.

Jurors will finish watching the videotape Tuesday when court resumes.

Court TV Extra is streaming the trial live on the Web.