BARNSTABLE, Mass. — With prosecutors expected to rest their case soon against a garbage collector charged with raping and killing fashion writer Christa Worthington, the defense on Tuesday attempted to point out the many stones investigators left unturned.

Defense attorney Robert George drew jurors' attention to the unanswered questions about Jeremy Frazier, the man defendant Christopher McCowen claims stabbed Worthington, 46, in her Cape Cod home on Jan. 5, 2002.

During his cross-examination of Massachusetts State Police Sgt. William Burke, George established that even though detectives were aware Frazier had been using a cellphone registered to a paroled murderer named David Murphy, but never did more than telephone Murphy relatively recently to ask about Frazier.

Burke also acknowledged that he was never able to figure out who called Frazier on Murphy's cellphone from a state police barracks on the night Worthington was killed. Burke did, however, deny the suggestion that Frazier was a police informant.

"I'm being told he has no connection with the state police," Burke said.

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The defense contends that during the three-year investigation into Worthington's murder, detectives did not want to ask too many questions about Frazier and Murphy because they did not want to know the answers.

McCowen's semen was found inside Worthington, and that was enough for investigators who spent countless investigative hours trying to link one or more of Worthington's ex-boyfriends to the crime, the defense maintains.

Prosecutors believe that McCowen, and McCowen alone, went to Worthington's home, raped her, and then stabbed her to death. McCowen denied having contact with Worthington until a comparison of his DNA to semen found in Worthington's body led to his arrest in April 2005.

"He said he could have had sex with her, and he said he couldn't remember because he was drinking and he could have blacked out," Burke testified.

Assistant District Attorney Robert Welsh III has been using McCowen's contradictory statements, ultimate admissions that he had sex with Worthington and beat her, and the DNA link as the foundation of his prosecution of the 33-year-old man on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated rape.

Welsh called three other witnesses Tuesday to try to poke holes in the defense claim that McCowen was framed by Frazier or someone else.

Det. Scott McCabe testified that McCowen was alert and cooperative, and did not appear to be under the influence of drugs when eight to 10 police officers stormed a home in Hyannis and took him into custody. The defense contends McCowen, who has a low IQ, was under the influence of marijuana and a painkiller during the six-hour interrogation in which he placed himself at the crime scene.

Under cross-examination, state police DNA analyst Christine Lemire testified that she was never asked to look for DNA on blue and white fibers recovered from Worthington's pubic hair. There was previous testimony that Frazier wore a blue and white sweatshirt on the night of the killing.

"We can't obtain DNA from fibers," Lemire said.

"The answer is, you never tested that sweatshirt," George said.

The trial was recessed for the day at 1 p.m. to comply with a request by jurors to have time to spend with their children on Halloween. Welsh is expected to rest the state's case-in-chief on Wednesday or Thursday.

The trial is being shown live at Court TV Extra.