| On the morning of March 22, 1988, 55-year-old Phyllis Wilde, owner of The Face Place, a Santa Clara facial massage studio, was found murdered in her Santa Clara home. She had evidently been dead for several days: A roommate, noticing a peculiar odor, had first opened all the windows in the house, then entered Wilde's bedroom. She discovered her roommate's body lying face-up in bed. Wilde had been savagely attacked with a blunt instrument — beaten so savagely that the entire left side of her skull had collapsed. Before leaving, the killer had drawn the blankets over the body and balanced two pillows neatly over the victim's head. The room was splashed with blood. The attending coroner described the attack as one of the most vicious beatings he had ever seen. Santa Clara homicide investigator Sgt. George Teal was assigned to the case. One of the first people he allowed to enter the crime scene was Norman Sjonborg, a respected 37-year-old San Jose attorney and one-time executor of Phyllis Wilde's estate. Sjonborg, who went by his middle name, Russell, had been one of the last people to see Wilde alive. He had consulted with her on the afternoon of March 17 about "a personal | loan" he was making to his client. As a matter of routine, Sjonborg was questioned by Teal about his whereabouts the night of the murder. He answered Teal's questions calmly and to the investigator's satisfaction: "In the manner consistent with someone telling the truth," Teal noted. Sjonborg's 29- year-old wife, Terry Schleizer, confirmed that her husband was home on the night of the murder. It was a baffling case. There was no physical evidence and no apparent motive. Although police would later determine the victim's purse was missing, robbery was ruled out. For three years, the case remained unsolved. And for three years, Terry Schleizer lived with the knowledge that on the night of March 17, 1988, her husband was not, in fact, at home. Terese "Terry" Schleizer first met Russell Sjonborg in 1984, when she was divorcing her first husband. A native of Phoenix, Terry had moved to the Bay Area two years earlier with her two young sons. She met Russell at the office of Geoffrey Braun, the San Jose attorney who was handling her divorce, Russell, who shared office space with Braun, was immediately smitten with Terry. "He seemed like a nice guy, |