That wasn't quite my question. I know according to the article she found the dog with the leash on.
My question was: Did she say she left the leash on the dog when she put it in the back yard? There is nothing I have read that said she left it on the dog so if Scott said he found the dog with the leash on and she may have taken it off before putting him in the yard then Scott blew it again.
The neighbor at 8:30 p.m. when Scott called her may have told Scott she found the dog with the leash on and Scott then told the police that he found the dog in the back yard with the leash on, this may have been another lie on Scotts part.
Ooops, sorry!
"Q. Did you take the leash off the dog?
A. No."
That was the question and answer AFTER the prosecutor had had Karen Servas describe in EXCRUCIATING detail how she saw the dog, went up to the dog, took hold of the leash, checked one gate and found it locked, went to the other gate, briefly looked around b/c she thought she heard someone raking (but that sound turned out to be coming from a different yard), said, "McKenzie, stay!", then closed the gate tight and left.
This prosecutor went into so much detail, he even had her describing which way her car's front was pointing in relation to the dog, and had her mark on a diagram exactly where the dog stood in relation to the car when she first saw him, and had her mark her exact path she took to get the dog back to his fenced yard.
Karen Servas was asked if she heard from Scott on the 24th. She replied, according to her testimony: that yes, he called her, not sure of time but knew it was after 8:30, wanted to know if Karen knew where Laci was. Karen said no. So Scott told Karen Laci was missing, and that they had helicopters and people searching the park for her. Karen said she told him she wasn't there, that she was up in Ripon (a town 10-15 miles north of Modesto); she said, "and I told him, well, I found McKenzie." At that point, Scott said, hold the phone, and he immediately put a detective on the phone to Karen so she could tell it directly to the detective.
So it appears that Scott had a detective standing right there listening to him talk to Karen. That, to me, seems to make it difficult for him to adopt what she told him as something he "already knew", such as the fact that the leash was on the dog when the dog was put in the pen. She told the details, about her finding the dog, directly to the detective.
Then on Dec. 25, she said she was back home, so she was in and out of Scott's and Laci's house that day.
The next time she heard from Scott, Karen was in Santa Fe. He called her on Dec. 28 and left a msg. She called him back about an hour and a half after the msg was left.
Back to when Karen S. was at the house on Christmas. She said she went to their house to watch the 5:00 Sacramento news b/c on her satellite, she doesn't get the local channels. She wanted to see if Laci's disappearance was being reported in Sacramento. She stayed till about 5:15, then went home. While she was with Scott watching the news at his house, Jackie and Lee were also there, and so were Renee Tomlinson and her husband.
Scott asked her to stay for dinner. She said no thanks, b/c she is a vegetarian. She went home 5:15, but Scott called her up and said, I found some tortellini that you can have on your diet. So she DID go back over to eat with them. She said Renee and husband were no longer there. Jackie and Lee were upset and crying; Scott was calm and cooked her tortellini. Scott brought up the fact that the police had taken his gun from his glove box; said he was upset that they had taken it w/o his knowledge.
The last time Karen S. saw Laci was on the 22nd. Laci and Scott were in their yard. Laci wanted some plants transplanted. Scott was doing the transplanting and Laci was telling him where she wanted the plants re-planted. Also, on that day Scott came to Karen's house and helped her set up her Christmas tree.
Apparently Karen is a divorcee with a young son. Some of the time described, the son wasn't at home with her. Must've been doing the Christmas visitation with the father. Karen herself was clearly not really celebrating much of Christmas at home, but was going to other people's (probably relatives') houses for various Christmas events.