According to Dennehy, the derision continued to escalate. Soon, he said, it crossed the threshold of abuse. "It got uglier," Dennehy said, and David Stewart finally left the room to take refuge on his bed. Clearly, Stewart had been drinking, although Dennehy insists that his blood-alcohol content was nowhere near the level in the priest's bloodstream. "David did have, I think they said right before Mardell and the priest walked in...I think it was a Seagram's and Seven or something like that," Dennehy said. "He'd had a drink or two before they got home, and then after Mardell got home he did make a drink and took it out into the living room...he did have a few drinks in him."

Perhaps Stewart was impaired, Dennehy says, but Father Leo and Mardell Eames did nothing to reduce the volatility of the situation. In fact, he insists, Heineman continued to taunt the old man. The priest, he said, at first ignored Stewart's absence from the kitchen. "It's like David wasn't in the kitchen to insult anymore and then, after 20 or 30 minutes...(Heineman) walks into the living room and it's like, 'Oh, come on, man, you can't even come out here and defend your wife's honor."

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"He just came walking out and got into it with David and David is just sitting there," Dennehy said. "The bed is opened out, but David is...sitting up with a couple of pillows behind him."

Though Mardell Eames had testified that Stewart had pulled out the handgun and fired at Heineman as the priest approached him with an open hand, Stewart insisted, Dennehy said, that she never saw a thing. "Mardell was out in the kitchen continuing to drink," Dennehy said. According to Dennehy's account of Stewart's statement, the priest became even more abusive when he entered the living room. Not only did he insult Stewart over the old man's unfulfilling relationship with his wife, he also challenged Stewart's service as a civilian contractor during the Second World War.

Heineman, who was of German descent, insisted that Stewart's Scots-Irish heritage was less than noble, and then added, according to Dennehy, that the Wehrmacht under Hitler should never have been defeated by "weak pansy-ass people like you."

Stewart, he says, threw insults back at the priest, and he later told the attorney that it was at that point that the situation spiraled completely out of control.

"The next thing you know," Dennehy said, recounting Stewart's statement, "he says Heineman's over him and he grabs David's shirt and...(he's) right in David's face."

"David says, 'I'm getting scared,' because this guy is drunk and David had heard stories before about this guy...and David is like 'Oh, my gosh, this guy is in here and he's giving me all this stuff."

Frail and nearing 70, Stewart was on the verge of panic, Dennehy said. He recalled Stewart telling him that as the priest grabbed him, he looked over at the end table where his loaded gun lay. "I look over with my eyes, I sort of look over at the nightstand," Stewart told Dennehy. "Leo looks over at the nightstand too, and sees my gun over there in the holster."

"What? Are you afraid of me?" the priest is said to have asked Stewart. "You afraid of me? You think I might do something to you? You think I might get that gun before you do? Maybe I'll get that gun and shoot you, you miserable son of a bitch."

"So David is really scared," Dennehy said. "David reaches over and gets the gun...he's got the gun and he says, 'Look...you better leave now and leave me alone.'"

According to Stewart's account to his lawyer, he wasn't pointing the gun at what he described as the rampaging priest. He was, Dennehy said, pointing it up in the air in the hopes of intimidating Heineman. But Heineman wasn't at all intimidated, Dennehy said.

"David says Heineman grabs around the barrel of the gun...I think his right hand was holding...David's shirt, the other one grabs the barrel of the gun and he pulls the barrel over and puts it up against his chest."

"'Come on, you balls-less wonder,'" Stewart recalled the priest hissing at him. "'Come on you...coward. You better make this shot count because you're only going to get one and then you're going to get some.'"

David Stewart never denied that he pulled the trigger. Though he claimed at the time of his trial that he did not remember making the conscious decision to do it, he never even hinted that the gun might have discharged accidentally. "There was no allegation that the gun went off spontaneously... David (pulled) the trigger. The gun goes off...it goes right through (Heineman's) chest."

The priest staggered back and collapsed to the floor alongside the sofa bed. A moment later, Stewart heard his wife screaming. "Oh my God, you son of a bitch! You killed him."