MIAMI – Emotions stirred a Miami courtroom Tuesday as the fiancée of the late Lynne Friend testified in the murder trial of her ex-husband.
Cliff Friend is charged with first-degree murder. He is accused of killing his ex-wife and dumping her body at sea in 1994.
Almost 20 years ago, Ed Odell was going to marry Lynne and move her and her son to Tennessee with him. But she vanished before that could happen. Odell had to hold back tears as he reminisced about his relationship with Lynne.
"I am saying that my fiancé disappeared," Odell testified. "It was a very chaotic time. It appeared that there was foul play. I was, I'm sure, in some type of shock."
The night of his ex-wife's disappearance, U.S. Customs officers said they spotted Cliff and a friend, Alan Gold, dumping something overboard.
"Until we learned about what happened on the boat, I had no real thinking that Clifford had anything to do with it," Odell said.
Odell testified that he was on the phone with Lynne when she received a phone call from Cliff about going to his house to pick up a child support check. Odell told her to pick it up and call him back afterwards. He never heard from her again.
Lynne's body was never found.
Gold was expected to take the stand Wednesday.