UPDATE: State Rests; Fry Defense To Begin Friday

Prosecutor Stephen Regine rested the state's case against Kimberly Fry Thursday afternoon, handing the second-degree murder trial over to the defense.

Regine called his last witness Thursday, questioning Det. Sgt. Jeffrey St. Onge, of the , who was the lead detective in the investigation that led to Fry's arrest.

He testified Thursday that he executed a search warrant on the Fry home, locating, among other items, a small, yellow notebook in her purse, which contained Fry's writings about "battered mother syndrome" and "battered wife syndrome." The notebook describes a narrative among Fry, her daughter, Camden, and her husband, Tim, regarding a game Camden had been playing that Kim had shut off. Kim Fry wrote that Camden threw the game at her during one of her tantrums, which the defense has described as frequent.

"Ughh, I'm never enough," Fry allegedly wrote.

St. Onge described a second notebook in which Kimberly Fry had recorded her thoughts and feelings. Regine directed St. Onge Thursday to read from the writings, much of which described Fry's unhappiness with her marriage, her daughter's struggles — which were later diagnosed as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder — and her life in general.

"Where is my family going? My marriage? Myself? I have no idea," Fry reportedly wrote while sitting in her car at Rome Point in North Kingstown just over a year before her daughter's death. "Tim and I are just not on the same page. When he's away, things are better. Cam is better. I wouldn't want to come home if I was him — to a bossy, out-of-control daughter and a spent, uninterested wife.

"No wonder she is such a pain in the ass," the notes continues. "I just want her to stop giving him a hard time. I just want to run and hide. Where’d my joy go? Where did my family go?"

On cross examination, defense attorney John Lavoy pointed out that St. Onge, one of five detectives who worked the case, did not personally go through every notebook in the Fry home, and was not aware of all the writings in the house, particularly one that detailed the progress Camden had been making in school. Regine later noted that St. Onge had Camden's entire file from Fishing Cove Elementary School, which included such progress reports.

Lavoy questioned St. Onge on his investigation, which included canvassing the neighborhood the day Camden Fry's body was found, Aug. 11, 2009. He noted St. Onge could find no one who heard or saw anything that had happened the night before, which Fry is purported to have strangled her 8-year-old daughter during a temper tantrum over her refusal to take a bath.

In earlier testimony, Lori Rizzo, a counselor at the Adult Correctional Institutes in Cranston, said Kimberly Fry told her she is a "horrible person" and expected she might spend the rest of her life behind bars. Rizzo testified Fry told her about her daughter's death, admitting to putting her hands over Camden's mouth on Aug. 10, 2009. The girl's father found her dead in her bed the next morning. Kimberly Fry is facing the possibility of life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder.

"She said her husband is going to leave her and she's going to lose her nursing license and she'll be left with nothing in her life," Rizzo testified Fry said soon after arriving at the ACI. "She said she didn't care if she spent the rest of her life in prison."

Fry made the admissions during an impromptu conversation after a prison orientation meeting, Rizzo said. Defense attorney Sarah Wright pointed out that Rizzo did not tell Fry that the conversation was not confidential and that the counselor would be reporting what was said, which she did immediately after the meeting.

During the same conversation, Wright noted, Fry expressed fear and confusion over being in prison, saying she'd never done anything wrong and "never imagined she could have hurt her daughter." Fry told Rizzo she had received threats from other inmates at the ACI and was scared to be moved to general population, Wright said. Fry has been at the ACI for more than two years, since her arrest on Aug. 12, 2009.