Atty: Evidence shows intruder, not brother, killed Calif. girl

VALLEY SPRINGS, Calif. - A motion filed Tuesday by an attorney for a 14-year-old Northern California boy accused of stabbing his 8-year-old sister to death says that recently tested DNA found on the victim's body supports the teen's assertion that he is innocent and that an intruder was the perpetrator.

The motion, filed by attorney Steve Plesser, asks that the teen be released from custody pending additional testing, which he says is necessary prior to the case going to trial.

The boy, who CBS News is declining to name because of his young age, has already been incarcerated for nearly two years in connection with the April 2013 stabbing death of his sister, Leila Fowler. A tentative trial date is set for May 18.

The boy has pleaded not guilty to juvenile charges of second-degree murder and his mother, father and stepmother have said they believe he is innocent and had no motive to harm his sister.

Police say the boy was home alone with Leila on April 27, 2013, the day the killing took place. The children's father and stepmother left the family's Valley Springs home to go to one of their other children's Little League games.

The motion states that the parents spoke to the boy and Leila multiple times throughout the morning and afternoon. At one point, the boy called to ask his parents if it was alright to give Leila medicine for a headache. Another time, Leila spoke to her parents and said that things were fine and that her brother had made pancakes with blue food dye, just the way she liked them.

But an hour and a half after the phone call about the pancakes, the boy called his parents to tell them an intruder had been in the house. The parents called 911 and in turn, a 911 dispatcher phoned the house and spoke to the sobbing boy, the motion says.

The boy told the dispatcher he was in the bathroom when he heard an unknown male's voice in the house and then heard his sister being attacked in her room across the hall, according to the motion. The boy said he opened the bathroom door and was able to gain a limited view of the intruder, who he said hit Leila very hard before fleeing, leaving her for dead.

The brutal crime sparked a manhunt for the killer that spanned days and even drew the attention of the FBI. Eventually, authorities zeroed in on Leila's brother and made an arrest.

In a motion filed this week, however, the defense contends authorities have the wrong man. They point to evidence that they say indicates the boy was telling the truth when he said an intruder was behind the attack.

The motion first points to the autopsy conducted in the case, which found Leila died after being "stabbed and slashed by a knife-like weapon more than twenty times."

Prosecutors have suggested a serrated knife found in the kitchen of the home is the murder weapon, but the motion filed by the defense says the coroner who performed the autopsy excluded the knife, as well as all knives shown to him from the home, as having been capable of being the murder weapon.

Furthermore, the defense says there was no blood on the boy or his clothing, except for a small stain on the rear of his shirt, and no blood visible on the knife believed by the prosecution to be the murder weapon, thus suggesting a clean-up took place.

The motion says law enforcement collected all drains and traps from sinks, showers and tubs in the residence and found no evidence of the victim's blood or any evidence that cleaning products had recently been used on the items or the plumbing in the home.

"Given the implausibility of any perpetrator pulling off such a clean-up without traces of it being detected by the FBI and Department of Justice, it must be emphasized that [the accused] was 12 years old at the time of the offense, i.e. when the prosecution theorizes he must have pulled off just such a feat," the defense writes.

Additionally, the defense says they were made privy to another piece of evidence just last month that they say further helps prove their client's innocence: an unknown male's DNA found on a hair on the victim's body.

They call this "powerful new evidence that there was an intruder in the house" and say it is therefore "fundamentally wrong to continue to detain [the boy] ... while the prosecution struggles to salvage a floundering case against him."

Calls for comment to the Calaveras County District Attorney's Office and the Calaveras County Sheriff's Department were not immediately returned Wednesday.

A hearing in the case is scheduled for Friday, where the boy's attorney is expected to make further arguments for his release.