LAWRENCE, Mass. — The insanity defense trial of a transvestite dermatologist who killed his wife came to a literal halt Thursday afternoon when a bus carrying jurors on a tour of key sites in the case broke down in front of the doctor's former home.

The sixteen panelists who are to begin hearing evidence Friday against millionaire physician Richard Sharpe, 47, were briefly stranded on the Gloucester cul-de-sac where the defendant and his wife, Karen, and three children once lived.

Troopers accompanying the jurors summoned a city bus to drive them back to court and the final leg of the trip — a tour of the shooting scene — was rescheduled for Friday morning. Opening statements in the first-degree murder case will follow.

Sharpe shot his 44-year-old wife to death in July 2000, several months after she had fled the home and filed for divorce. She alleged at that time that Sharpe had abused her throughout their 26-year marriage and was a cross-dresser who took her birth control bills in an attempt to grow breasts.

Richard Sharpe

Sharpe, who had been treated for depression, claims he was insane when he burst into the foyer of his wife's new home and fired a single shot into her chest. He faces life in prison without parole if convicted.

The sensational case captivated the public on the north shore of Massachusetts. Many of prospective jurors said they had read extensively about Sharpe in local press, and it took four days for Judge Christine McEvoy to find an impartial jury. Some potential panelists said they had seen pictures of the doctor in drag and were repulsed.

"My value system would tell me that there is something wrong with that," said one middle-aged man, shifting uneasily in the witness chair. He was excused.

The judge finally seated a jury of nine women and seven men on Thursday. Four alternates will be chosen randomly from the jury prior to deliberations.

Bundled in coats against the afternoon chill, the jurors boarded a charter bus for an hour's drive from Lawrence, a blue-collar city dotted with boarded-up brick factories, to Gloucester, a seaside town which bills itself as "America's Oldest Seaport."

The bus wound through the narrow streets of wooden homes with peeling paint before stopping in front of a tan clapboard home a few blocks from the harbor. Prosecutors are expected to contend at trial that Sharpe stole the murder weapon from an acquaintance who lived in the run-down home. Jurors were escorted inside where prosecutors pointed out a gun rack and a closet safe built to hold weapons.

The home where the "perfect" family lived

Next, jurors were driven to the Sharpes' marital home in an upscale residential area outside Gloucester. While curious neighbors looked on from their landscaped yards, the jurors milled around on the lawn of the two-story home with yellow siding and green shutters. They did not enter.

On Friday morning, they will visit Karen Sharpe's home in Wenham, a half hour's drive from Gloucester. Prosecutors contend that the very distance between the homes indicates that Richard Sharpe knew what he was doing when he armed himself and drove to her house.

Kathleen and Victor Lembo, Karen Sharpe's sister and brother-in-law, were in court Thursday to see the jury sworn in. The Connecticut couple share custody of the Sharpe's two minor children, 5-year-old Alexandra and 9-year-old Michael, with eldest child, Shannon, 28. Also present was Karen Sharpe's father and her brother, James Hatfield, a witness to the shooting.