NORRISTOWN, Pa. _ The detective who in 2005 investigated Andrea Constand's sexual assault claims against Bill Cosby testified Thursday that Montgomery County's chief prosecutor at the time abruptly announced he would not pursue charges against the 79-year-old entertainer.
Cheltenham Police Sgt. Richard Schaffer said he and other detectives had actually just met to discuss "investigative leads and where we were going" when they learned hours later that then-District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. was publicly declaring the matter closed.
Assistant District Attorney M. Stewart Ryan didn't ask the detective to elaborate.
But Schaffer's testimony, at the open of the trial's fourth day in Norristown, suggested detectives were caught off guard by Castor's decision to shut down the probe into Constand's claim that Cosby drugged and molested her at his home a year earlier.
Castor, who has been mentioned by Cosby's defense as a potential witness, has previously cited concerns about Constand's credibility as the reason he decided the case wouldn't hold up in court. He also said he thought closing the criminal investigation would help Constand in her civil lawsuit against Cosby because it would free him up to be deposed.
Cosby was charged with aggravated indecent assault in 2015, after then-District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman reopened the 2005 investigation.
Taking the stand Thursday, Schaffer told jurors he had been assigned to investigate Constand's claims in January 2005, a year after the alleged attack.
"She seemed anxious to me, a little bit nervous," Schaffer said of his first phone call with the then-operations manager for Temple University's women's basketball program. "And I think the overriding thing was that she seemed like she wanted to get her whole story out."
Constand did not share her full story with police until days later, when she traveled from her home in Ontario, Canada, to Montgomery County to meet with police.
On their cross-examination of the detective Thursday, Cosby's lawyers returned to a theme they've pounded during the trial: inconsistencies and changes in her statements to police.
Jurors also heard for the first time excerpts from Cosby's 2005 interview with police. At the time, he told police he gave the over-the-counter drug Benadryl to Constand on the night of the alleged assault to help her relax. But, he said, their sexual contact was consensual.
"I never intended to have sexual intercourse, like naked bodies, with Andrea," he said, according to the police transcription of his statement. "We are fully clothed and we are petting. I enjoyed it. And then I stopped and I went up to bed. We stopped and then we talked."
Later in the interview, asked again whether he had sex with Constand, Cosby replied: "Never asleep or awake."
Jurors also heard Thursday morning from Purna Rodman Conare, who was Constand's neighbor in a condominium building on Callowhill Street in Philadelphia.
He said he got to know Constand when she moved into the building and began working for the women's basketball team in 2001. He said they became close friends _ "like a older brother or a fatherly relationship." They remain friends today.
Constand's demeanor changed in her last few months living in Philadelphia, Conare recalled.
"She became a little more distant," he said. " ... She left in an abrupt way."
Testimony was to resume Thursday afternoon.
