Multiple changes in story led officials to accuse Rivera

Juan Rivera was having nothing but trouble explaining what he was doing on Aug. 17, 1992, witnesses testified Thursday.

Rivera, 36, is on trial in Lake County circuit court for the third time for the rape and murder of 11-year-old Holly Staker. He twice has been convicted and sentenced to life in prison, but new trials were ordered after both convictions.

On the second day of testimony, prosecutors used a police officer, a friend of Rivera's and a polygraph examiner to show that Rivera was lying during a police interrogation on Oct. 27 and Oct. 28, 1992.

Originally considered someone who may have information about the case, Rivera was brought to Lake County for questioning from the prison where he was serving time for burglary.

A police official testified Rivera told police he was at a party that night where he observed a suspicious character who might have killed Holly. But his friend Michael Jackson, who lived in the house where the party was supposed to have taken place, testified there was no party.

Authorities say Rivera then told them he waited outside Jackson's house for close to three hours hoping the party would start, then left because he saw flashing police car lights from outside the murder scene.

Also not true, Lake County sheriff's officer Michael Blazincic said, because it would have been impossible for Rivera to see the lights outside the Hickory Street apartment where Holly was murdered from Jackson's place.

Rivera then said he had broken into a car, stolen some stereo speakers and took them home, only to return to the north side of Waukegan to happen upon the commotion on Hickory Street.

But police quickly determined no car had been burglarized in the area Rivera claimed to have committed the crime.

The lies he was telling, coupled with his admission that he knew Holly was baby-sitting on Hickory Street the night she was killed, brought police to one conclusion.

Michael Masokas, a polygraph operator for a Chicago firm, testified it was decided that he would be the first to accuse Rivera of killing the girl.

"I told him that the investigation indicated that he did in fact kill Holly," Masokas said. "He became agitated; he denied it and he began using obscenities."

Masokas, who administered two lie detector tests to Rivera, is being allowed to testify in the case about the circumstances surrounding those tests, but not about the results of the examinations.

In earlier proceedings in the case, it has been acknowledged that the first of those tests was inconclusive.

The second test, attorneys have said during pretrial motions, indicated Rivera was being untruthful in at least one of his responses but could not pinpoint the specific question that raised the red flag.

Masokas said that at one point of his pre-polygraph interviews with Rivera, Rivera told him he was supposed to be wearing a court-ordered electronic monitor on the night Holly was killed.

The monitor, which was supposed to be getting a signal from a transmitter attached to Rivera's ankle, was to ensure he remained at home while awaiting sentencing on the burglary charge.

Defense attorneys claim the monitor records show that Rivera was at home on Aug. 17, 1992, and those records are part of the evidence that proves Rivera's innocence.

But Masokas testified Rivera told him he simply unplugged the monitor, and was free to come and go as he pleased.

Testimony is expected to continue Friday.

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