From The Associated Press

Opening statements began Monday in the trial of a man accused of killing his wife of 33 years, a popular music teacher.Kenneth Carroll Fitzhugh's wife Kristine was found bloody, strangled, and beaten May 5, 2000, at the bottom of the basement stairs in the couple's Palo Alto home, a crime that shocked the well-to-do neighborhood.Prosecutors argue that Kenneth Fitzhugh, 57, killed his wife to keep her from telling her son the identity of his biological father."Maybe this is why the defendant killed his wife. We'll never know for sure," Deputy District Attorney Michael E. Fletcher said. "Only two people know why. One is dead, and one is on trial for murder."Fitzhugh's lawyers plan to argue police implicated the wrong person and that an incompetent investigation overlooked evidence that Kristine Fitzhugh could have been murdered by a stranger burglarizing her home, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.Robert Brown, the former lover of the slain teacher, is expected to testify during the trial about a phone call he says he had with Kristine Fitzhugh in which she allegedly told him she was going to tell her son upon his graduation that Brown was his real father."This is so hard for me," Brown, 56, recently told the San Jose Mercury News from a house in the Sierra Nevada foothills. "The three of us were so good friends I couldn't bear the thought of losing either one of them."Two weeks before Justin Fitzhugh graduated from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, his mother was found dead.DNA tests, taken since Kristine Fitzhugh's killing, prove Brown is Justin Fitzhugh's father.Brown is a disbarred attorney with a history of substance abuse and criminal behavior. It was Brown's companion, Steve Manfredo, who persuaded him to call police. But it was only at the third interview when Brown recalled Kristine's phone call.Brown met the Fitzhughs 30 years ago in San Diego where he and Kenneth Fitzhugh were co-workers at Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical. The friendship between the three was so close they even teamed up to buy and sell condominiums, bought a bar named High Life and shared sailboats.Brown said the affair with Kristine Fitzhugh began nine months after they met, and that when she got pregnant she refused to tell her husband the truth so as not to harm her marriage. Brown was named Justin's godfather.He told the San Jose paper he is convinced that Kenneth Fitzhugh didn't know about the affair and he doesn't know when he found out.Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Franklin D. Elia is presiding over the case, which is expected to last six to eight weeks, the Chronicle reported.