State Rests, Defense Begins Case in Tiede Trial

HENDERSON (Staff/AP) — Jurors who will hold Bernie Tiede’s fate in their hands soon will have to decide who was scamming whom after hearing evidence from his five-year relationship with Marjorie Nugent. KETK and the Longview News-Journal report the state rested its case at 2:24 p.m. Thursday in Tiede’s resentencing trial in Henderson. That left time for Tiede’s defense to begin building its case before court adjourned at 4:40 p.m.

Tiede was convicted in 1999 of killing Nugent, a widow more than 40 years his senior whom he befriended in Carthage. On Thursday, a state’s witness testified the relationship Tiede struck up with the oil widow netted the funeral director who buried her husband some $3.6 million. Lead defender Mike DeGeurin is expected to lay a scenario, in testimony stretching into next week, in which the widow was playing fast and loose with that money — using his client as her dupe.

Tiede was sentenced to life in prison but freed after a prosecutor said he believed Tiede deserved a reduced prison sentence because of abuse he suffered as a child. Jurors could now send him back to prison or let him remain free. Tiede’s case inspired the dark comedy movie “Bernie.”