LOS ANGELES — In his dramatic first day of testimony, Kenneth Kimes wiped away tears as he explained to jurors how his mother, Sante Kimes, devised a scheme to make hundreds of thousands of dollars on a fraudulent bank loan, and then sent him out to kill the one man who stood in her way of collecting that money.

Sante Kimes, 69, and her 29-year-old son are charged in the 1998 malice murder of David Kazdin, a former friend who was unwittingly caught up in Sante's alleged scam.

Years before his murder, Kazdin allowed Sante to put his name on the deed to a home she owned in Las Vegas. In late 1997, she allegedly took out a $280,000 loan on the property, forging Kazdin's name on the paperwork.

Kenneth testified Thursday that in February 1998, his mother learned that Kazdin had grown wise to her scheme, as he had alerted the bank that his identity was being fraudulently used.

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Sante allegedly turned to her then-23-year-old son and said, "We're gonna have to kill him."

The wheelchair-bound Sante, who was openly weeping during the testimony, held a tissue to her mouth and desperately tried to make eye contact with Kenneth.

Sante Kimes sobs during her son's testimony Thursday.

"I felt exhausted," he continued. "Because I knew the responsibility for that act would fall to me."

Kenneth and Sante Kimes were convicted in 2000 in New York for the murder of their landlord, Irene Silverman, whose $7 million townhouse was presumably on Sante's wish list.

Although the pair remained devoted to each other throughout the New York case, they unexpectedly parted ways last November when Kenneth changed his plea to guilty and agreed to testify against his mother.

He arrived in court Thursday wearing a bright orange L.A. County prison jumpsuit — his hands cuffed and chained around his waist.

Mother's plan

Kenneth told jurors that on March 13, 1998, he set out to complete his mother's plan to kill David Kazdin.

Kenneth had been to Kazdin's home a half-dozen times on surveillance missions. In addition, Sante had picked up a drifter named Sean Little, whom they had "wooed" with "nice food, cocktails and fake friendliness," Kenneth said, in order to gain his help with the murder.

That morning, the three of them woke up before sunrise, "to psyche ourselves out and get in the right mindset," Kenneth testified.

He filled his backpack with plastic trash bags, duct tape and gloves. He put a .22 caliber gun in his waistband, and told Little that they were going to visit "someone who had caused my family some problems."

Before they walked out the door, Sante allegedly told her son, "Good luck. Do a good job."

When the two men got to Kazdin's home, Little rang the doorbell and Kenneth forced his way in, saying, "David, I need to talk to you about some things." Kenneth told Little to wait outside while he and Kazdin spoke in the living room.

"I was talking to him about the loan situation," Kenneth said. "He seemed nervous. He kept saying, 'There's nothing to worry about, there's no problem.'"

Kenneth asked Kazdin to get him a cup of coffee, and then followed him into the kitchen.

"He got to the kitchen sink and I shot him in the back of the head," Kenneth said. "He dropped."

Throughout his day-long testimony, Kenneth appeared drawn and yielding, often taking deep breaths as he spoke in a confessional tone about learning the art of the con from his mother and committing murder at her bidding.

A great duty

After he gunned down Kazdin, Kenneth called for Little and the two men dragged the body into the garage and stuffed it into the trunk of Kazdin's Jaguar.

They returned to the house, collected the shell casing, cleaned a pool of blood on the kitchen floor with paper towels and Windex, and headed out.

Little drove the Jaguar and followed Kenneth in his car. Before they disposed of Kazdin's body, Kenneth testified, they went to the Beverly Center mall, bought new clothes and watched a movie, "The Man in the Iron Mask."

By nightfall, Kenneth testified, they had driven to an alleyway near the Los Angeles airport. They wrapped Kazdin's head and feet in plastic bags, stuffed him in a Dumpster and headed home to the Bel Air apartment Sante had been subletting.

Feeling high from the killing, Kenneth said, he stopped off to buy flowers.

"In my mindset, I thought that I had completed a great duty for my Mom," he told jurors. "I felt that it was a significant completion and I wanted to celebrate."

Before he left with a $100 bouquet, he asked the flower-shop girl for a date and left her his phone number.

Kazdin's body was found the next day by a homeless man who had been rummaging through the trash bin.

Shortly thereafter, Kenneth and his mother fled to New York. They were eventually captured by authorities on July 5, 1998 — the same day that their millionaire landlord disappeared.

A sweet little beaten puppy

Thursday's testimony appeared to effectively buttress the prosecution's claim that although Kenneth pulled the trigger, Sante Kimes was the mastermind of Kazdin's brutal murder.

As prosecutor Eleanor Hunter questioned Kenneth, she repeatedly asked, "Who told you to kill David Kazdin? Whose idea was it to use the plastic bags? Who planned the way it would be done?"

Each time, Kenneth answered, "My mom."

Jurors also saw portions of letters that Sante had written to Kenneth while they were in custody in New York, awaiting trial for Silverman's murder. In the letters — which invariably opened with "Kenny my soulmate son," "My honey bunny," or "My precious son!" — she instructed Kenneth on how to develop his alibi and how to carry himself in court.

"A lot of time you read in the papers, 'The defendant was cold; showed no compassion,'" one letter read. "I think the key is to show good emotions just like a sweet little beaten little puppy."

Kenneth grinned with embarrassment as he further explained how his mother advised him of ways to escape jail: "Find a friendly guard; look for an open door; when someone's not looking, run."

Sante Kimes' attempts to manipulate her own trial have been a constant source of irritation for Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell, who admonished Kimes again Thursday morning for being an hour late after refusing to get on the jail bus that was to transfer her to the courthouse.

On Wednesday, court was postponed after Kimes complained to prison guards that she was having severe chest pains. She was taken to the medical ward where a doctor conducted a series of tests. On Thursday, outside the presence of the jury, the judge confronted Kimes.

"The doctor determined that you don't even need a wheelchair and you're absolutely fine," Judge Kennedy-Powell said, warning Kimes that if her "fake displays of illness" continued that the court would determine that she has "voluntarily absented" herself from her own trial and it would be carried on without her presence.

"We are not going to go through this every day," the judge said.

Kenneth Kimes' testimony will continue Friday. In exchange for his plea agreement, he will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Sante faces the same sentence if convicted.