Margaret Rudin's defense generated little heat as it opened its case with a flurry of experts, including a fire expert and a DNA consultant.

Ron Rudin's body was not completely burned in the firepit near where the murdered millionaire's remains were found, but may have been partially burned in another location, according to the fire forensics expert called to the stand by the defense.

Following more than a month of testimony from prosecution witnesses, the first defense witness, John DeHaan, challenged the prosecution's theory of the crime and testified that Rudin must have been cremated elsewhere.

"It did not reflect the scene I would expect from burning an adult male body on site," he said.

Testifying as the defense's first witness, DeHaan said he based his opinion on photographs of the scene at Nelson's Landing and reports generated by the state's criminologists.

According to prosecutors, Margaret Rudin shot her fifth husband while he was sleeping in their modest home before transporting his body in an antique trunk to the area near Lake Mohave and setting it on fire using gasoline.

But the amount and quality of the gasoline as well as the appearance of the charred trunk do not support prosecutors' theory, DeHaan said.

He conceded, however, that Rudin's body was at least partially burned there based on evidence of gasoline found in soil samples.

Although this information may not prove Margaret Rudin's innocence, the defense hopes it will cast doubt on the state's theory of the crime.

DeHaan detailed for the jury his reasons for believing — contrary to the opinions of police criminologists — that Rudin could not have been completely burned at the site where his charred remains were discovered nearly a month after his Dec. 18, 1994, disappearance.

It would have taken more than 55 gallons of gasoline and about four hours to completely burn Rudin's body, he said, but no evidence of that amount of gasoline was present at the scene or in soil samples collected by police.

There was also no evidence of a "black greasy residue" that would have resulted from burned body fat, nor were there remains of anything that acted as a wick, such as a charred carpet or wood, DeHaan said during direct examination by lawyer Tom Pitaro.

But during cross-examination by prosecutor Chris Owens, DeHaan admitted that he based his findings about the wick solely on photographs of the scene and criminology reports.

When he examined the remains themselves hours before his testimony inside the Clark County Court House, DeHaan did find fabric recovered from the scene.

"They were not present in sufficient quantities to generate a large-scale fire," he told Owens.

Owens also got DeHaan to concede that the material that functions as a wick in some cases is "charred away."

Bolstering DeHaan's theory was crematory director, Bart Burton, who testified about how human remains would appear if they were cremated.

Referring to a photograph of Rudin's charred remains that was displayed on a monitor for the jury, Burton said it appeared that the skull and the bone fragments had not been burned simultaneously.

Forensic DNA expert Nora Rudin — no relation to the victim — also took the stand for the defense but offered little to refute the findings of state DNA experts.

Experts testifying for the prosecution said that blood found inside Ron Rudin's bedroom positively matched DNA samples taken from his handkerchiefs, lending to the state's theory that Rudin was shot in his bedroom.

Though Nora Rudin said that the tests may not be as reliable as prosecution experts believe, she conceded that, because no DNA sample was taken directly from Rudin himself and because certain tests were not performed, she found no inconsistencies with their findings.

"They could have a common origin but the evidence is weaker for some of them," she said.

Also called to the stand was Jeanne Nakashima, a friend of Margaret Rudin who had testified for the prosecution that she left a message on Rudin's answering machine about a china closet.

During her testimony last week, Nakashima admitted she left a message about a chest on Rudin's answering machine in February 1995.

Taking the stand for the defense, Nakashima said that the day Ron Rudin was last seen she attended the grand opening of Margaret Rudin's antique shop — and that she returned to the shop later that evening and stayed from 9:30 p.m. until after midnight.

Out of the presence of the jury, Owens objected to Nakashima's testimony, saying that the defense never gave prosecutors the required 10 days' notice that they were calling an alibi witness.

But defense lawyer John Momot argued that Nakashima was not an alibi witness because the prosecution never provided an exact time for the murder.

Rudin was last seen the evening of Dec. 18, 1994, and his employees testified for the prosecution that they heard gunshots from the Rudins' house the following morning.

Bonaventure scolded the defense for not giving ample notice to the prosecution of the alibi witness, but Momot blamed prosecutors.

"Why don't they tell me the date and time when this murder occurred?" he said.

But Bonaventure ruled that the defense must file the notice, postponing the remainder of Nakashima's testimony to give the prosecution time to respond.

Because Nakashima was the last witness scheduled Monday, testimony ended early. Before they began calling witnesses, defense lawyers were estimating that their case would only last a week, but already that estimate seems unlikely.

Bonaventure, exasperated after a five-week prosecution case and the day's legal wranglings, left the courtroom for a regular 10-minute recess, commenting, "10 minutes, 10 hours, 10 days. I don't know."