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Several days after 15-year-old Anne Kasprzak's beaten body was pulled from the Jordan River in March 2012, Spencer Criddle received a text message from his friend asking for a favor.
"He was trying to get me to remember an incident about Annie having a bloody nose," now-17-year-old Criddle testified in court on Tuesday.
That friend had begged Criddle to tell the police that the Riverton girl had a bloody nose at Criddle's house weeks prior, and that a drop of her blood had fallen on the friend's shoe.
The friend, Kasprzak's 14-year-old boyfriend, told Criddle that his shoes had been taken by police as evidence in the girl's disappearance and murder.
A visibly nervous Criddle testified Tuesday that he had no independent recollection of this bloody nose event, but when asked by a police officer later that day if the girl had a bloody nose, he responded, "I believe so."
"To me, it may or may not have happened," he said.
Kasprzak's boyfriend, now 17, is now accused of murdering the girl on March 10, 2012.
She was last seen alive in her Riverton home that evening. Her body was found in the Jordan River in nearby Draper the next day.
The boyfriend is charged in 3rd District Juvenile Court with first-degree felony murder and second-degree felony obstruction of justice.
Tuesday marked the second day of testimony in a seven-day certification and preliminary hearing — where prosecutors present evidence and testimony and Judge Dane Nolan will determine whether there is probable cause to believe the teen committed the crime.
Nolan will also decide whether the defendant's case should stay in juvenile court or go to adult court, as prosecutors have requested.
The Salt Lake Tribune generally does not identify juvenile defendants unless they have been certified to stand trial as an adult.
Police and prosecutors have not publicly revealed a motive in the case.
Kasprzak, however, had been telling her friends and family that she was pregnant with the boy's baby, though her stepfather testified Monday that she wasn't pregnant. But she wrote in a journal that she believed her boyfriend "did not want the baby that she told him she was carrying," according to a search warrant affidavit.
Criddle said his friend was "shocked" and "upset" by the news that Kasprzak was pregnant.
"He was just in shock about how young he was," he said. "How big of an impact [a baby] would have been."
Also Tuesday, Heather Mills, a forensic scientist at the Utah Crime Lab, testified that she found indications of blood stains on the defendant's black-and-white Nike shoes. Two of those spots were positively identified as Kasprzak's blood, DNA analyst Rebekah Kay testified.
Blood that was found on a bridge south of 12300 South and on some rocks on the Jordan River Parkway was also Kasprzak's, Kay said.
Days after the girl's body was found, police went to the defendant's home and asked for his shoes, according to previous testimony. He hesitated, Draper Police crime scene technician Alyssa McElreath testified on Monday.
The teen told police, "Just so you know, Annie had a bloody nose and she may have gotten blood on my shoes," according to McElreath.
McElreath said the boy claimed that the bloody nose occurred at Criddle's house, but police found no evidence of any blood there.
Medical Examiner Edward Leis testified Monday that Kasprzak had bone fractures, bruising and hemorrhage to her face and head. It was likely caused by "multiple blows" that overlapped one another, Leis testified.
Leis said he certified Kasprzak's cause of death as "blunt force injury to the head." Her manner of death was a homicide, he said.
The defendant was not arrested and charged until October 2014, at which time he was living in Colorado.
Defense attorney Christopher Bown told reporters Monday that his client was innocent.
Kasprzak's mother, Veronica Kasprzak, is expected to testify at the preliminary hearing Wednesday morning.
Police initially arrested two men in connection with Kasprzak's death — based on a bad tip from a female witness who was upset with the men — but they were cleared of the crime in 2013.
Twitter: @jm_miller