The investigator double-murder defendant Roy Kipp claims tampered with crime scene evidence took the stand in the retired Florida officer's death penalty trial Friday and denied moving a gun to make Kipp look more culpable in the fatal shooting of his wife and her lover.

"Absolutely not," Collier County Sheriff's Sgt. Michael Fox replied to repeated defense charges that he took a weapon from the hand of victim Jeff Klein, a fellow deputy, and placed it in the dead officer's locked truck, parked 250 feet away.

Sgt. Michael Fox

Fox acknowledged, however, that he did not take pictures of the gun, nor did he immediately write a report about it and no other officers could corroborate the discovery.

"Nobody else saw that gun in that truck but you, sir," defense lawyer Michael Orlando said.

"That's true," Fox admitted.

The case is being tried in Punta Gorda, 50 miles north of Naples, where the crime occurred, because of widespread media coverage.

Alleging police misconduct is just one part of the defense's multiple-defenses trial strategy to save Kipp, a 17-year veteran of the sheriff's office, from death row. The 44-year-old defendant admits pulling the trigger May 20, 2000, in the killing of his estranged wife, Sandy, 35, and Klein, also 35, a former friend and co-worker.

But his lawyers contend Kipp was acting both in the heat of passion after finding the couple spending the evening together and in self-defense after Klein went for a gun.

That .40-caliber gun, however, does not match the murder weapon. As prosecutors promised during opening statements, a ballistics expert testified Friday that a dozen shell casings at the scene came from a 9 mm gun. A friend of Kipp's previously testified that the defendant confessed that he "waxed" the pair with his "nine."

But seeking to raise any doubt, the defense in the first few days of the trial has implied the presence of a second gun in Sandy Kipp's apartment and argued Klein never would have left his gun in the truck.

One of Klein's close friends on the force, however, testified Friday that it was Klein's practice to leave his loaded gun in his truck.

"I told him he shouldn't leave it in his vehicle because there's a good chance it would get stolen," Sgt. Joseph Fiola said, who added that Klein usually ignored him.

Fox testified that he could not have moved a gun because he was not in the apartment until the medical examiner removed the body, several hours after Klein's gun was found in the truck.

Under grilling by the defense, he acknowledged that he first wrote a report on the gun nearly a year after the killings and only because Kipp's lawyers were asking questions. He said he never considered the weapon evidence because it was in a locked vehicle far from the site of the actual shootings. Crime scene investigators tested the outside of the maroon truck for fingerprints, but the inside was irrelevant, Fox said.

"I did not consider the contents of the vehicle evidence so why not give it back to (Klein's) family," said Fox.

Also Friday, Sarasota police officer Ryan Stimpert recounted arresting Kipp in his truck. Stimpert said that as he took Kipp into custody he asked him if he knew "what was going on."

Kipp replied, "very bad things," the patrolman said.

He told jurors that Kipp also blurted out "I don't have the gun" and told officers it was in his house in Naples.

Testimony in the case continues Monday morning. The trial is being broadcast live on Court TV.