The murder trial for former Orange County school teacher Delores Laster, who's accused of killing her husband in 1988, will resume Thursday.

Laster was arrested in 2009 after her children came forward and said they helped her cover up their father's death 21 years earlier.

The state has called the case "almost the perfect crime" that couldn't be solved for 20 years, until cold case detectives re-interviewed the children. The state has said the memories are not false, like the defense claims.

Laster had been a teacher in Orange County for about 40 years, and for much of that time, investigators said they had suspected she was responsible for the death of her husband, Clarence Laster.

In 1988, Delores Laster told police that she had returned home from a trip to Gainesville and found her husband shot dead on the floor in their garage.

At the time, the couple's two children told detectives they never saw their father that morning. When the case was reopened two decades later, the children -- now adults -- admitted that they helped their mother drag their father's body from a bedroom to the garage.

According to the children, their mother told them that their father had rolled out of bed and hit his head on a nightstand.  They do not recall hearing gunshots.
Since Laster's arrest, however, her son changed his story again, saying he doesn't remember what happened that night.

The defense said the kids provided details, such as being covered in blood, that don't match the crime scene. The defense said the velocity of bullet sealed the wound, limiting the blood lost.

The first witness was a paramedic who first responded to the scene. He said he didn't immediately know Clarence Laster had been shot.

A neighbor then testified hearing the couple arguing two days before the body was found and saw Clarence storm out of the house and drove away. Delores Laster had originally denied there was a fight.

The last witness of Wednesday was one of the original detectives on the case, now retired from OSCO.

The defense plans to call a neighbor, a former OCSO weapons instructor, who heard five gunshots coming from the house hours after Delores Laster left. He and his wife reportedly saw another man at the house later that day.

Laster's son won't be testifying in person because he's in the military, so the jury will see a taped testimony from him. Both he and his sister are reluctant to testify against their mother.

The trial will resume Thursday at 9:30 a.m.