SAN DIEGO — Were they cunning killers who cracked under the pressure of a police interrogation or innocent boys browbeaten into false confessions?

The teenage trio initially suspected of Stephanie Crowe's murder remained at the center of a preliminary hearing for Richard Tuite, the man investigators now say is the 12-year-old's real killer.

Last week, Tuite's attorneys showed Judge Gale Kaneshiro, who will decide whether there is enough evidence to try the 33-year-old drifter for the 1998 stabbbing death, a dozen hours of videotaped police interviews in which Joshua Treadway claimed he helped Stephanie's brother and a third boy commit the crime. The defense maintains that Tuite, a schizophrenic, had nothing to do with the murder and that the teenagers are the true culprits.

Joshua Treadway

But Monday, prosecutors struck back with more videotaped questioning that they say makes clear Treadway was coerced. In the interview, part of a 10-hour session which predates the confession, a whimpering Treadway, then 15, said he concocted a story about disposing of the murder weapon because a detective convinced him he would otherwise spend the rest of his life in an adult prison.

"The reason why I'm saying this is because I think you think I was supposed to hide it," said Treadway, referring to a knife police believed Stephanie's killer wielded. He added that the truth was, "I know nothing."

In the taped interview, detectives told Treadway they had forensic evidence linking him to the crime and implied that Stephanie's brother, Michael, and another friend, Aaron Houser, had pointed the finger at him. The detectives often denied or ignored his requests to see his parents and use the bathroom. Treadway appeared to hyperventilate at one point and sobbed for 15 minutes at another.

Treadway, now a 20-year-old college student, sat with prosecutors as the tape played. He stared down at a transcript of the interview, only occasionally glancing at the TV monitor. Twenty feet across the courtroom, Tuite stared at the monitor, his gaze rarely wavering.

Richard Tuite

The tape depicts Treadway as a devout, well-mannered teen who, along with his family, was almost comically naïve about the gravity of his situation. His father, Michael, a locksmith who frequently worked with police officers, visited him at the police station to urge him to cooperate. He led his son in prayer to Jesus for "inner calmness," but balked at hiring a lawyer even after the family home was searched and his son arrested and interrogated for hours.

"God, I don't want to go this route, but we may have to hire an attorney and all that kind of stuff. Oh, like I've got money for that," the elder Treadway told his son. Still, he permitted the questioning of his son to continue.

At one point, Treadway also talked of punishing his son, then facing murder charges, by taking away his video games, saying, "I think the Playstation is gone."

Stephanie Crowe was stabbed to death in her bedroom the night of Jan. 21, 1998. Police focused on her 14-year-old brother and his friends. Like Treadway, Michael Crowe confessed the crime but then recanted. A judge found that portions of both boys' confessions were illegally obtained and on the eve of trial, DNA tests showed the victim's blood on Tuite's clothes.

Tuite, a schizophrenic drug addict, was seen in the neighborhood the night of the murder, but initially discarded as a suspect.

His defense tried to prevent prosecutors from using the tape played Monday, but downplayed its impact. The tape is "just the early stages of Joshua Treadway coming to grips with the consequences of what he knows the truth comes out in bits and pieces," said defense lawyer Brad Patton outside court.

Prosecutors plan to put Treadway on the witness stand Tuesday afternoon.

Although the remaining witnesses in the preliminary hearing, an interrogations expert and an investigator, will speak about Treadway's confession, the strongest evidence against Tuite is certainly the drops of Stephanie's blood found on his shirt.

Patton said Monday that he did not plan to counter that prosecution evidence in the preliminary hearing. Kaneshiro will almost certainly order that Tuite over for trial, and Patton said that although he had witnesses who would suggest the DNA evidence is the result of contamination, he did not want to tip his hand before trial.

Under California law, prosecutors do not have to inform the defense about the state's evidence and experts until 10 days before trial.

"It doesn't do us a lot of good to present evidence based on a limited amount of evidence from the prosecution," said Patton.