BARNSTABLE, Mass. — The man a garbage collector claimed wielded the knife against slain fashion writer Christa Worthington testified Thursday that he had only vague memories of the night of her murder, but was certain he had nothing to do with her death.

The witness, Jeremy Frazier, told jurors at the rape and murder trial of his former friend Christopher McCowen that he was drunk that night, but remembered taking part in a booze-fueled, furniture-breaking brawl at a house party 13 miles from the victim's Cape Cod cottage.

The prosecutor called Frazier and a man who vouched for his alibi to the witness stand Thursday to bolster his contention that McCowen made up Frazier's involvement in the brutal slaying because he did not want to admit to police that he alone raped and killed the 46-year-old writer.

"I ask you for the record: Did you kill Christa Worthington?" assistant district attorney Robert Welsh III asked Frazier.

"No, I didn't," he replied.

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Frazier has been one of the most anticipated witnesses of the trial because of his central role in an account of the murder McCowen gave investigators after his arrest. During the seven-hour interrogation, the 33-year-old garbage man gave at least eight different versions of the Jan. 5, 2002 crime, but in each he said Frazier became violent after Worthington accused him of stealing.

McCowen ultimately acknowledged he had joined the assault by punching and kicking her, but insisted Frazier was the one who plunged the knife into her chest.

On the witness stand Thursday, Frazier, a beefy 23-year-old truck driver who wore a blonde goatee, an oversized blue suit and a gemstone earring large enough to be seen in the back row of the courtroom, said he was with McCowen at a rap contest in the cape town of Orleans earlier in the night and he recalled seeing him later at an "after party" at a home in Eastham.

He said he remembered participating in a party-ending fight involving "eight to 15" people, but was unsure whether McCowen was still present.

"Do you remember him leaving?" the prosecutor asked.

"No," Frazier said.

"Do you know whether he left before you?" the prosecutor asked.

"No," he said.

The witness, who spoke in a bored, dispassionate tone, and the defendant did not look at each other during the testimony. McCowen stared down at police reports on the defense table and Frazier looked blankly out over the packed courtroom gallery.

The prosecution maintains that McCowen drove from the "after party" to Worthington's house by himself. The defense alleges McCowen's entire statement is false and the result of coercive police tactics.

Both Frazier and his friend and alibi witness, Shawn Mulvey, said their memories of that night were limited because three years passed before police questioned them about it. McCowen was arrested 39 months after the murder when lap tests matched his DNA to saliva and semen on Worthington 's body.