Defense Rests Case in Penalty Phase for Klaas’ Killer

Defense attorneys Thursday rested their case in the battle to save the life of Richard Allen Davis after his stepsister tearfully begged jurors to spare the man who killed 12-year-old Polly Klaas.

“I love him. I don’t want anything to happen to him,” Brenda Kidd said. “I’m a Christian and I feel that Rick can change. I have been able to have a walk with the Lord and I want him to have the same opportunity.”

Davis, 42, was convicted June 18 of murdering Polly after kidnapping her Oct. 1, 1993, from a slumber party in her Petaluma home.

Jurors are considering whether he should die or spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. After the defense rested, prosecutors began rebutting defense arguments.

Once that is complete, final arguments will be made. The case will be given to the jury possibly next week.

Kidd, the final defense witness, said she first met Davis in the seventh grade. She became friends with Davis and his older brother, Don, and they played together. Kidd’s mother later baby-sat for the Davis children and was briefly married to their father. Kidd said Davis’ father, Robert Davis, was “mean to the boys.”

“No one was ever there for him. It’s like they left him in the desert to fend for himself,” she said. “Rick was never loved by . . . his parents, and I feel he needs and deserves that opportunity like any other person does.”

Earlier Thursday, in an intense cross-examination of defense expert Dr. George Woods, prosecutor Cliff Harris asked the psychiatrist whether Davis has a history of faking mental illness to try to get out of trouble.

Woods conceded that Davis has made such statements. But he refused to back down from his diagnosis that Davis has chronic personality disorders.