SAN DIEGO — Prosecutors do not have to prove Richard Tuite guilty of Stephanie Crowe's 1998 murder beyond a reasonable doubt. Not yet. For now, they only have to show there is enough evidence to merit sending him to trial. Then, it will be up to a jury to consider issues of reasonable doubt.

Richard Tuite

And four days into their probable cause hearing — which is scheduled to resume Feb. 19 —prosecutors believe they have already proved their case against the 34-year-old drifter, who is only the latest suspect in the stabbing death of 12-year-old Stephanie. In court documents filed Monday, they argued they had established compelling evidence against Tuite, including:

• Hours before the Jan. 20, 1998, murder, Tuite was seen in the Escondido neighborhood where Stephanie lived. Prosecutors referred to Tuite as a "mentally unbalanced, drug-addicted transient" who was knocking on doors looking for a woman named Tracy. Tuite's strange behavior alarmed residents, causing two to call police to report it and two others to follow him.

• While responding to a 911 call about Tuite, Escondido police officer Scott Walters spotted someone entering the Crowe house shortly before 10 p.m. A pathologist estimated that Stephanie was stabbed or cut nine times between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m.

• During the day that followed the murder, police seized from Tuite a red turtleneck shirt, which later tested positive for the presence of Stephanie's blood. The stain was "spatter," suggesting that it was deposited as a result of force, rather than a transfer or smear.

• A photograph of contents removed from Tuite's pockets, and later returned to him, revealed the presence of a Smith Brothers cough drop wrapper and a Snickers candy bar wrapper. Photographs from the crime scene show the presence of Smith Brothers cough drops and Snickers bars, though neither was preserved as evidence after being photographed.

Stephanie Crowe

Prosecutor Gary Schons argued this week that the physical and circumstantial evidence is enough to establish probable cause that Tuite committed the crime, and Judge Gale Kaneshiro is widely expected to agree. But the complexities of the case make it far from certain whether prosecutors will be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt during a trial that Tuite committed the murder.

Lead defense lawyer Brad Patton has argued that the main evidence against Tuite — the blood spots — probably resulted from inadvertent "contamination" by police, and that there is much more evidence that others committed the crime.

He was referring to Stephanie's older brother, Michael Crowe, now 19, and Michael's friends, Joshua Treadway and Aaron Hauser. Treadway and Crowe confessed to killing Stephanie, in part because of Michael's sense of "jealousy and hatred" of Stephanie and Hauser's fascination with "medieval weaponry and death," Patton told the judge.

Michael Crowe confessed to killing his younger sister during a videotaped police interview, but the charges against him were eventually dropped.

Charges against Crowe, Treadway and Hauser were dismissed in 1999 when Tuite's shirt was found to be stained with Stephanie's blood, but that will not prevent the Escondido Police Department's case against the boys from playing a prominent role in Tuite's defense.

Patton noted this week that he doesn't have to prove that the boys killed Stephanie or that her blood wound up on Tuite's shirt because of contamination. He merely has to raise reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors.