If the shoe fits

But he was a cool customer, according to Robert Michael Jennings, a retired special agent with Illinois State Police who interrogated Harris on Sept. 30, 2009, nine days after Raymond “Rick” Gee, his wife Ruth and three of their children were found beaten to death with a tire iron in their home in the tiny town of Beason.

When Jennings found Harris for a chat, he was at OSF St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria, visiting Tabitha Gee with Nicole Gee, his ex-wife, the mother of his newborn son and the adult daughter of Rick Gee, the special agent testified Friday in Harris’ murder trial. Tabitha, the sole survivor of the attack and just three years old, had somehow survived a tire iron blow to her forehead and another to the side of her head.

No big deal, Jennings told Harris – your fingerprints were in the house, which isn’t surprising given your closeness to the family. We just need to ask you a few questions. Then Jennings asked to see the bottom of one of Harris’ K-Swiss tennis shoes in a hospital elevator. The tread matched bloody shoe prints found in the Ceramic tile, Jennings testified. What kind of vehicle do you drive? Pickup, painted primer grey, Harris answered.

Before hearing from Jennings, jurors on Friday listened to testimony from Michael Oyer, a retired Illinois State Police crime scene investigator who described the discovery of shoes that Harris had been wearing the night of the killings. They were easy to spot from a span over Sugar Creek between the Gee house and the Armington home where the defendant was staying with his brother Jason Harris, about 25 miles north of Beason.

Jason Harris may have led investigators to the shoes, which were found not far from a tire iron and a computer air card, used to access the Internet, that came from the Gees’ laptop computer. The discovery came on Oct. 6, 2009, the same day that police served a search warrant at Jason Harris’ home and found the laptop, covered in dirt and grass, in his pickup truck. It’s not clear what led police to Jason Harris, but prosecutors say that he accompanied his brother the night of the killings. The state has agreed to dismiss first-degree murder charges in exchange for his testimony. Under the deal, Jason Harris, who was facing a life in prison, will get a 20-year sentence for concealing a homicide, obstruction of justice and unlawful delivery of a controlled substance. With time off for good behavior, he will be free in six years.

Roads between the Gee household and Armington are bordered by farmland and vacant tracts. In the dark, the brothers could have thrown the shoes and tire iron most anywhere, forcing investigators with crossed fingers to comb many miles of rural roadside. Instead, they chose a bridge marked with yellow-and-black hazard signs. And they didn’t even hit the water. The shoes made it further than the tire iron into a field alongside the creek beneath the bridge, Oyer testified.

In at least one respect, the K-Swiss shoes found in the field didn’t match the ones that investigators took from the defendant the night that Jennings questioned Christopher Harris. The shoes that cops took from the defendant were size 12. The ones found in the field a week later were not. It is a difference that prosecutors have surrounded with neon.

Under their bed, Ruth and Rick kept a large tub filled with DVD’s and brightly colored sex toys clearly visible from outside the clear plastic tub. During pretrial motions, the defense had said that Dillen acted out against inanimate objects, and jurors heard Oyer say that numerous dents, gouges and scratches on doors and walls “were consistent with having been kicked and punched over a period of time.” The home, he said, was messy.

The only window in Dillen’s bedroom was covered up with a sheet of fiber board, supporting what defense counsel Peter Naylor had told the jury in opening statements: Dillen, who had a history of disciplinary problems at school, had once snuck out of the house, and so windows had been nailed shut.

Dillen’s bedroom was the only one that had no blood in it or other evidence of an attacker. It did contain a Sony PlayStation 2 video game system and three Mortal Kombat games in which the player is tasked with killing characters that meet bloody ends. The defense claims that Dillen’s love for violent video games is evidence that he killed his own family.

This was going to be such an easy answer. I'd just direct Jones to Travelex, which had a Chip and PIN (personal identification number) card, and that would be the end of it. The Travelex card would be a backup, because many places overseas can accept U.S. cards that have a magnetic stripe.

But the answer wasn't easy. Besides the fact that there isn't a convenient Travelex near Jones' home, Travelex has discontinued its C&P card, which worked well for me on a London trip last year. It was easy to get and use.

You may not even need a Chip and PIN card when you travel — but, then again, you may. You may need it when you try to buy a transportation pass at an unmanned kiosk in a London Tube station, which probably won't accept your U.S.-issued magnetic-stripe card. You may need it when you try to buy a mobile phone outside the heart of London, and the shop owner gives you a withering look and says, "Don't you have a smart card?"

That's when that Travelex card came in handy for me a year ago. But no more, the company says. At least, not for now. "We are working on a new and enhanced version of the card, which should be available later this year," Travelex rep Maria Brusilovsky told me in an email. "Unfortunately, we don't have a substitute at the moment."