Twenty-three years after Kathleen Smith's storied Tempe murder, a footprint will loom large in her alleged killer's upcoming trial

No police reports exist to suggest that blood ever was drawn from Ortloff or Schibler, and Caley was equivocal in a recent interview about whether he had given a sample. Caley told detectives in an earlier interview that he hadn't had sexual intercourse with Kathleen for several days.

So, as the Ortloff trial begins, the vital questions of who deposited the semen and when remain unanswered.

Kathleen dropped Caley off at her mother's home about 7 the next morning. Carol Smith told police that she'd heard Caley come in and go to his room.

Kathleen then drove to Mesa Community College to take an hour-long psychology test (her professor confirmed her attendance). She was supposed to go from there to work and then, according to her mother and others, to First Interstate for a scheduled appointment with her banker.

But no one at the bank, including the manager, ever confirmed to police that Kathleen had an appointment on October 5, 1984, or on any other day.

As for Ortloff's whereabouts on October 4, then-girlfriend Jennifer Spies consistently has said that they spent a quiet night with his brother Michael watching television at home after going out to dinner.

"Everything just seemed normal," Spies told a prosecutor in 1985. "Nothing stands out in my mind."

Little would be normal for Ortloff on October 5, 1984, the day someone murdered Kathleen Smith.

For months afterward, Jennifer Spies stuck to her original account of Ortloff's whereabouts when she awoke about 10 a.m. on October 5.

She said he'd been with her at home and then they'd left for work at the flower shop in separate cars.

That seemed to provide Robert Ortloff with a nice alibi, whatever the police or the Smith family believed about his guilt.

But Spies was lying.

In truth, she had no idea when she awoke where Ortloff was and how long he'd been gone.

Her lie may have started innocently enough. Ortloff's mother had surprised her with a phone call wondering why she and Robert weren't at Fiesta Flowers getting ready to open for business at 10 a.m.

Claire Ortloff had driven up from Tucson that morning on a whim, but no one was at the store. Spies said later she'd covered for her boyfriend so that his mother wouldn't get on him for being tardy.

Spies told her that Ortloff already was on his way and that she'd be right behind him.

Skipping her shower, Spies drove to Fiesta Flowers, later estimating that it was about 10:15 a.m. when she arrived. Within minutes after saying hello to Claire, she walked across Southern to a nearby bank to deposit money.

When she returned to the store, Robert already had shown up.

"I seem to remember just a feeling that he was clean," Spies told a prosecutor months later, just as she was about to leave Ortloff and return to California for good. "His normal work clothes are very casual, but he was groomed."

By casual, Spies said she meant khakis and a polo shirt.

Rick Schibler's daughter, Robin, was working next door at the Subway shop and said she'd first seen Robert Ortloff at "approximately 10:30 to 10:35 a.m.," a police report states.

The timing is crucial: The Tempe Fire Department was dispatched to Kathleen Smith's condo at 10:42 a.m., just a few minutes, according to arson investigators, after the residence would have gone up in flames.

Remember, Ina Weisbaum and her granddaughter had seen a guy in red shorts and a T-shirt fleeing from the area of Kathleen's condo.

How could Ortloff have found the time to change, cool down after a brawl with Kathleen — in which he'd sustained visible injuries — and gotten to his job even by 11, clean-shaven and neatly dressed?

Prosecution witness Fred Tokars will testify that Ortloff told him of creating a delayed, wick-type fuse to give himself up to an hour to get out of the condo and over to work before it ignited.

According to Jennifer Spies, sometime before noon, Ortloff helped her load a bulky helium tank into her car for a drive to Phoenix.

To this day, Spies — who testified against Ortloff in the 1986 mail-bomb case — has been steadfast: She stood next to Ortloff at the flower shop as he loaded the tank, and didn't noticed any cuts or bruises on his neck. Nor did she see him limping with a foot injury of any kind.

"And you would have [noticed the injuries]?" a prosecutor asked Spies at a secret meeting in June 1985.

"Oh, yeah," she replied.