1. He claims he was at home, and most likely left his phone at home while he went to commit the murder. The cell phone tower data will show where his phone was, but not necessarily where he was.
2. The significance of the wife’s deleted message is not clear to me. It implies he didn’t have his phone with him at the time she texted him. But he does say he wasn’t paying attention to his phone while he was at home with it in his possession. Perhaps the surprise of him not expecting to be asked about the deleted text did not provide him time to fabricate a more plausible explanation of why he deleted the text.
3. He apparently took the stand in his own defense, which gave the prosecution an opportunity to introduce this evidence by surprise as part of their cross examination. Example #6.02 x 10^23 why defense attorneys discourage their client from taking the witness stand. I assume the trial had not gone well for him, so they were trying a desperate Hail Mary play with him testifying in hopes they could introduce enough reasonable doubt into the jury’s deliberations.
“He apparently took the stand in his own defense, which gave the prosecution an opportunity to introduce this evidence by surprise as part of their cross examination.”
I’m not sure what avocados have to do with this story, but what you’re saying above is that if he didn’t go on the stand, that certain evidence couldn’t be used without discovery first? I’m not a lawyer, but I haven’t heard that before...interesting.