ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — The trial continued Tuesday in Orange County for a man accused of killing the son of a top official in the 9th Circuit Public Defender's Office.
Prosecutors said Jay Stone allowed a couple and their two children to stay at his home, but it was a mistake that cost him his life.
Stone met Mike and Shanna Heath on a swingers website, where they told him that they were being kicked out of their hotel, prosecutors said.
Attorneys said Stone, a Disney worker, invited the couple and their two young children to stay at his apartment, but he was found strangled and tied up in his closet several days later.
Stone's father, John Stone, and his wife, saw the gruesome evidence photos of their 30-year-old son on Tuesday.
As a public defender, John Stone has dedicated his career to advocating on behalf of those charged with crimes but he wants justice to be served against Mike Heath.
In court, Shanna Heath tried to downplay Stone's generosity.
"We always gave him gas money when we went somewhere," she said.
But prosecutors said Jay Stone even gave the couple and their 1- and 2-year-old children tickets to Disney World.
A day after a trip to the amusement park, prosecutors allege Mike Heath tied Stone's hands with a belt, strangled him with a power cord and left his body in a fetal position in a closet.
Prosecutors said Heath and his wife then packed up Stone's SUV with his Blu-Ray player, laptop and DVDs, tossed his cellphone in a lake took off.
Stone's stepmother, Diane Stone, described the pain of waiting seven hours for police to reveal what they found.
"Hours of waiting. One of the deputies came down and said there was a body," she said.
The Heaths were headed for Tennessee but were arrested before they could get there.
Mike Heath has a court-appointed attorney because of the conflict with the public defender's office. He's claiming self-defense in the killing.
Testimony resumes on Wednesday.
WFTV
