NORWALK, Conn. — Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel's murder trial took a hard right turn Friday as lawyers argued, sometimes heatedly, over whether incriminating statements allegedly made by a Skakel family tutor should be admitted as evidence in the case.

The defense wants jurors to hear 1992 videotape recordings made by a psychiatrist hired by the prosecution, in which the former tutor, Kenneth Littleton, can be heard saying that he once confessed to his wife that he beat Martha Moxley to death with a golf club in 1975.

The issue of whether Littleton confessed to Mary Baker and whether jurors should hear about a bizarre scenario in which police used Baker as a sort of undercover agent were the heart of a contentious hearing that is holding up testimony in the long-anticipated trial.

Littleton, an early suspect in the case, testified Friday outside the presence of the jury that he did not confess to the crime, but was instead referring to his now ex-wife's assertion that he had admitted to killing Martha during an alcoholic blackout on a road trip the couple took in 1984. Baker, who lives in Canada, testified that Littleton never made any such admissions and that she had planted the idea in his head at the suggestion of investigators from the prosecutor's office.

Defendant Michael Skakel

The recordings were made a decade ago after Littleton, 49, became "the hot suspect" when the stalled investigation into Moxley's murder was reopened in 1991, prosecutor Jonathan Benedict said in court.

Benedict was not the prosecutor in 1991, and has said that techniques used then by investigators in an attempt to get Littleton to make a confession on tape were "bizarre." Baker says investigators told her to tell Littleton he had confessed to see what he would say.

Former prosecution investigator Jack Solomon, now the police chief in Easton, Conn., disputed Baker's account, testifying Friday that detectives never asked her to tell Littleton he had admitted to killing Moxley. Solomon also testified that Baker was the one that told him many times in his own recorded interviews with her that Littleton had questioned aloud whether he could have murdered Martha.

Benedict, put in the unusual position of having to impeach a retired investigator from his own office, noted that Solomon never wrote in any police report that can be found that Baker told him Littleton thought he could have been involved.

Solomon said he was somewhat sure he had written it down, but was positive that numerous recordings should reflect what Baker told investigators. "There are tapes," said Solomon, who was called by the defense.

Inspector Frank Garr, Solomon's former colleague and current prosecution investigator on the case, disputed those claims. Garr said Baker never told them Littleton had confessed to her. He said the only person to confess to anyone was Michael Skakel.

Garr said that after interviewing Baker, the investigators "used her with her agreement as an agent of ours and we sort of guided her in how to conduct the conversations [with Littleton] in an attempt to get him to open up and discuss the crime and possibly his complicity in it."

The testimony directly contradicted Solomon's. "I did not use her," Solomon testified. "We took her statements, investigated them and we took every step in an effort to collaborate them."

What does all this mean? The defense is asking Judge John Kavanewsky for permission to lay out the whole scenario before the jury. Sherman said jurors should decide whether or not Littleton confessed to his ex-wife and exactly who is telling the truth.

Police can legally use trickery and deceit to get someone to confess if it is truthful, but the defense appears to be banking on the possibility that jurors will find it unsettling. If nothing else, jurors could conclude that during a period of time in the 1980s when Littleton was drinking heavily even he was unsure if he was involved in the crime.

Martha at age nine.

Littleton testified in the jury's presence Thursday, but his cross-examination was delayed until Monday and the jury was dismissed for the day Friday so that the judge could hear arguments on the admittance of the recordings. Kavanewsky reserved decision but said he would consider objections to Sherman's cross of Littleton on a question by question basis. He may rule later on what evidence the defense can put on in an effort to raise doubt about Skakel's guilty by pointing a finger at Littleton.

Both Garr and Solomon testified that Littleton headed their list of suspects in 1991 and 1992. In an 11-page application to eavesdrop filed in court Friday, Solomon told a Boston court in February 1992 that he believed that taping conversations between Mary Baker and Kenneth Littleton could corroborate her claim that Littleton contradicted statements to police in conversations he made with her.

Among other things, according to the affidavit, Baker told investigators that Littleton became "obsessed" with the murder case the police interest in him and feared that he might be implicated. Littleton expressed concern to Baker, who divorced him in 1990, that a "hunter" could stumble upon his pants and a golf club in the "woods" and police could seek his arrest.

While police listened in an adjoining room at a Boston Howard Johnson's, Littleton and Baker discussed statements that Baker claimed Littleton had made previously. Solomon later got the eavesdropping application sealed, telling a court that the effort did not produce any investigative friend and that he feared that Littleton was capable of harming Baker if he learned she tried to help police.

Baker conceded that she lied to Littleton more than 10 times in an effort to get him talking. She said it was a "new twist that the police suggested" and she wanted to help clear up long-lingering questions about Littleton's guilt or innocence.

"Why did you do it?" Sherman asked on cross examination, somewhat more forcefully than he had questioned 13 other prosecution witnesses during the first three days of testimony in Skakel's trial.

"The reason I did it was because the police came to my door ... Detective Solomon spoke a lot about Mrs. Moxley's pain," Baker said, referring to Dorthy Moxley, the victim's mother. She added later, "I did what I thought was right. I'm just a simple person. I have respect for the police ... I Thought it was the right thing to do."

In the affidavit in support of the eavesdropping warrant in 1992, Solomon wrote that Barker told police that Littleton claimed in one conversation that he was being "framed" and the defendant's brother, Thomas Skakel, was using him an alibi.

Littleton told jurors on Thursday that Thomas Skakel, was watching television with him at about the time it is widely believed that Martha was attacked near the driveway of her family's estate in the Belle Haven section Greenwich, Conn., on Oct. 30, 1975.

Solomon testified that when he retired in 1995 an unsigned application for Thomas Skakel's arrest, dated sometime in 1976, was still in the prosecutor's files. The document is missing and the defense is still trying to have it located and turned over.