Marion Franklin was doing a bondage photo shoot the day she died.

Bob Shell is charged with supplying the morphine that caused Marion Franklin's death.

Related

Charges filed against Bob Shell in the death of Marion Franklin:

• Felony homicide
• Three counts of defilement of a dead human body
• Two counts of attempted sexual penetration with an animate object
• Attempted forcible sodomy
• Two counts of distribution of a Schedule II drug
• Possession of a Schedule II drug
• Distribution of a Schedule IV drug

RADFORD -- Jurors spent more than three hours watching sexually explicit videos in a dimly lit Radford courtroom Thursday afternoon during the third day of testimony in the case against photographer Bob Shell.

Five videos ranging in length from 10 minutes to more than an hour were displayed on the courtroom wall as the Radford detective who seized them as part of a homicide investigation sat on the witness stand.

Such videos have been an important element in the case since the first day of testimony because Shell and Marion Franklin, the model he is accused of killing four years ago, were working together on a bondage Web site.

Only two people were depicted in the videos: Shell, who's now 60, and Franklin, a 19-year-old from Boone, N.C.

Although they are graphic, with Franklin's wrists and ankles held in a type of wooden stock in one and various sex toys used in another, they show no kissing or direct sexual contact between Shell and Franklin.

Only about a dozen people -- police officers and deputies, court staff, reporters and Franklin's family -- were in the courtroom during the videos. Most, including Shell, watched them stone-faced, but Franklin's family members kept their heads lowered each time a graphic video of her was played.

Shell is charged with giving Franklin a lethal dose of morphine and then performing sex acts on her body.

He hasn't testified yet during the trial, which is expected to last at least two weeks, but has said in the past that he and Franklin were lovers and that they had consensual sex before her death on June 3, 2003.

Commonwealth's Attorney Chris Rehak has said the pair weren't involved and that Franklin's actions in some of videos proves it. In one of them, Franklin is shown flipping both of her middle fingers at the camera, which was being worked by Shell. She then says she was "just working on my feature film."

Investigators believe that video was shot the day before Franklin's death, Radford police Detective Andy Wilburn testified.

In at least two of the videos, Franklin can be heard talking about taking Valium.

Valium bottles and a Valium blister packet were among the many drug containers police seized from Shell's studio, home and vehicle and Franklin's apartment after her death.

A suspected morphine bottle that has been a key issue in the case took center stage for the first half of the day Thursday.

Shell's defense attorney, Jonathon Venzie, has fought at motions hearings for months to keep the opaque amber bottle out of the trial.

But Circuit Judge Joey Showalter allowed Rehak to admit it as evidence Thursday after it was determined who likely had access to the bottle the day of Franklin's death. Venzie contended that someone could have tampered with it.

Rescue workers and police have testified that when they arrived at Shell's studio at 239 West Main Street that night, Shell handed them the bottle and said Franklin might have ingested its contents.

In the videotaped interview that night with Radford police Capt. Jim Lawson, Shell can be heard saying that Franklin was "groggy but conscious" when they had sex about 5:30 p.m. Franklin told him she had taken "what was in the bottle," Shell said.

When he asked what bottle, Shell said, Franklin made a pinching motion with her fingers. He assumed she meant the bottle of morphine that had been prescribed to his late mother.

Shell told Lawson he lay beside Franklin and she snored.

Later, he said, he noticed she wasn't snoring and he couldn't feel a pulse, so he grabbed his stethoscope to listen for a heartbeat. When he couldn't hear one, he called 911.

But Radford paramedics Charles Coffelt and Jeff Harless testified that Shell told them a different story.

They said Shell told them that after he and Franklin had sex, he left the studio for a while and came back to find her unresponsive.

Rehak has said Franklin had been dead for some time before Shell called 911 and that she was dead when he performed sex acts on her.

Photographs back up that account, Rehak said, with one stamped just minutes before Shell called 911.

The time stamp on that photo is disputed, though, and is sure to come up later in the trial.

Harless testified that he was the first rescue worker to arrive at Shell's studio at 7:10 p.m. -- seven minutes after Shell called 911. He described Franklin as cool and blue, which he said was "maybe indicative of having been down for a prolonged period of time."