Jason Shephard, a 23-year-old intern with a South Dakota-based scoreboard manufacturer, was in the Philadelphia area to demonstrate new company equipment when it malfunctioned during a presentation.
"He was so afraid of letting the company down," Kyle Shephard said.
His testimony yesterday during the trial of William F. Smithson, the man Delaware County prosecutors say drugged and then strangled Jason Shephard, left at least two jurors and most of his family in tears.
The body of the intern from the small farming community of Cavalier, N.D., was found in the basement of the Thornbury Township home of Smithson, a coworker at scoreboard manufacturer Daktronics, on Sept. 21, 2006.
Smithson, 43, is charged with murder, aggravated assault, attempted rape, kidnapping, and drug and other counts. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.
Kyle Shephard recalled that he had been unable to reach his son the next day to see how his things went. They usually spoke two or three times a day, "especially in the evening hours," he said.
That night, a Daktronics representative called the Shephards to say that their son was missing and that police in West Whiteland, near where he was staying, had been contacted.
When he and his wife, Carol, arrived in Philadelphia, Shephard said, Smithson picked them up at the airport. The father never used Smithson's name during his testimony, calling him "the defendant."
While he and his wife waited for news, Shephard said, they made copies of the police missing-person poster of their son and posted them in a nearby mall. When people came up to talk to them, the Shephards gave them posters for their workplace and churches.
About 5 p.m. Sept. 21, Shephard said, they were called to the West Whiteland police station.
"They told us that our son was found dead in a home and he was strangled to death," Shephard said, barely holding back his emotions as jurors reached for tissues.
Smithson did not look up during the testimony.
A forensic toxicologist testified that there was enough GHB, the date-rape drug, found in Jason Shephard's blood sample to "act as an anesthetic" and put someone to sleep in minutes. No other drugs or alcohol were found in his body.
Before yesterday's testimony, defense attorney G. Guy Smith argued that Fen Bruce Covington, 58, who was in Smithson's home the night Jason Shephard was killed, should testify.
Covington invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself. The former St. Joseph's University official is charged with bringing drugs into Smithson's home, and faces drug charges in an unrelated case in Montgomery County.
Judge Barry C. Dozer upheld Covington's right.
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