Prosecutors began the preliminary hearing of the 30-year-old murder case against Eugene Zapata Tuesday by putting on the witness stand the woman who helped renew the investigation into Jeanette Zapata's disappearance in 1976.

It was Margaret Weekley, Jeanette Zapata's close friend, who sent an e-mail inquiry to the Madison Police Department records section in late November 2004 asking if anything more had been done about the case. That spurred a renewed investigation into the disappearance and the arrest in August of Eugene Zapata, who was married to Jeanette when she disappeared on Oct. 11, 1976.

On the witness stand, Weekley, who now lives in Oklahoma, talked about how much Jeanette Zapata loved flying and how much she loved her children. Prosecutors were trying to show Dane County Circuit Court Judge Angela Bartell that Jeanette would not have simply left her family or her job.

"She absolutely loved it," said Weekley, who knew Jeanette since the two were in their early teens. She described her longtime friend as "emotionally fragile," in her teens, but who grew stronger after she married and had three children.

Assistant District Attorneys Robert Kaiser and Brian Asmus used that testimony as well as testimony from other friends and former Frickleton workers to try to show that Jeanette Zapata must have been killed.

With close cross examination of all the witnesses by defense attorneys Stephen Hurley and Dean Strang, the Tuesday session of the hearing ran for three hours and included only five witnesses. The hearing will be resumed Thursday afternoon and could run into next Monday if it is not completed Thursday.

Witnesses Tuesday also explained the Zapatas were going through a divorce at the time Jeanette disappeared and that Eugene Zapata was in a custody fight with his wife, one that she was confident of winning.

Weekley testified that in weeks before filing for divorce Jeanette had discovered her husband had put a nearly nude picture of her in a pornographic magazine.

She said Jeanette told her that Eugene had rented a post office box in her name and put her picture in a "swingers" magazine inviting people to call if they were in Madison.

On Thursday, prosecutors are expected to show that recent investigations revealed scents of human remains were detected in houses and in a storage shed that Zapata used after his wife disappeared. That analysis was not available in 1976.

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