Testimony of 2 Conflicts With Pearce’s Killers’

Two defense witnesses in the trial of Roberta Pearce, who is accused of hiring two teen-agers to kill her husband, testified Thursday that she was in Escondido at the time the murderers, who are testifying for the prosecution, claimed she was in Tijuana.

Both Carrie Barth and Fumyko Fiore placed Pearce in Escondido on Feb. 2, 1989, after the Jan. 31, 1989, murder of Robert Pearce. Robert Pearce’s killers, Anthony Pilato and Isaac Hill, have testified that Roberta Pearce met them in Tijuana the Friday afternoon after the killing to give them $300.

Pilato and Hill, both 16, have pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and have been sentenced to the California Youth Authority until age 25. Each has testified that Roberta Pearce offered him $100,000 and two cars to kill her husband, with whom she was involved in divorce proceedings.

Barth, the director and owner of the McLeod Mortuary, where services for Robert Pearce were held that Friday, testified that she met Roberta Pearce sometime “early in the afternoon” and again at “exactly 4 o’clock” at the Escondido funeral home to discuss arrangements for a wake later that evening.

Fiore, a neighbor and friend of Roberta Pearce, said that Pearce had visited her that Friday afternoon between 1:15 p.m. and 2:15 p.m.

“I remember it was Friday (because) the next day I had a telephone call (in which Pearce) asked me to watch her dog, that was Saturday,” Fiore said.

Hill had testified last week that he and Pilato fled to Tijuana after the killing and that Pearce met them on Friday at 1 p.m. and gave them $300 to tide them over the next few days.

“She said that she was going to bring us more money Sunday,” Hill said.

Pearce, who completed testimony Thursday, said she had withdrawn $300 from her bank on Friday, Feb. 2, to buy an airline ticket to attend her husband’s funeral, to be held in Illinois. She was to pay for the $600 trip partly in cash and partly by credit card.

Under cross-examination, Pearce conceded that she had sex with Frank (Soddy) Rodriguez on “a couple of occasions” in the months before the murder. Rodriguez, who was 16 at the time, faces a charge of conspiracy to commit murder in the case.

She also testified to having smoked marijuana with Rodriguez and Mandy Gardiser, a then-16-year-old girl who lived with Pearce, an accusation that Pearce had denied in her testimony on Wednesday.

Pearce was a teacher’s aide at Orange Glen High School in Escondido at the time of the killing. Pilato, Hill, Rodriguez and Gardiser all were students at the school.