NASHUA – It was a little before noon on a Monday when state trooper John Encarnacao pulled his unmarked cruiser in front of the Spader family’s driveway at 7 Wallace Brook Road in Brookline.

It had been less than 36 hours since Kimberly Cates had been murdered in her bed inside her 4 Trow Road home. Her daughter Jaimie, then 11, was at Children’s Hospital Boston having undergone 12 hours of surgery to repair more than 20 stabbing and hacking wounds all over her body.

Christopher Gribble and Steven Spader were just coming out of the house. It was a mild day for October, clear and in the 50s with a slight breeze. Their friend Autumn Savoy was there, too. They were on their way to get job applications. Gribble was dressed in camouflage and had four pocketknives on him.

He was more than happy to talk to the state police Major Crimes Unit detective. He handed over his knives, gave Encarnacao permission to tow and search his car and agreed to ride with him to the old state police barracks in Milford.

Gribble may or may not have known it, but that’s the last time he would visit his friend Steven Spader’s house or go much of anywhere, with anyone, voluntarily.

Encarnacao and trooper Jeff Ardini interviewed Gribble for more than seven hours that afternoon and evening, at the end of which he told the troopers in great detail what he had done and where he had helped dispose of evidence.

Gribble’s defense attorneys tried to have the confession thrown out before the trial.

None of those damning details came out during the eighth day of Gribble’s insanity trial for the Oct. 4, 2009 murder of Kimberly Cates and attack on Jaimie Cates, because prosecutors began playing the seven hours of tapes starting at the beginning. Jurors were handed transcripts of the interrogation so they could follow along.

Gribble started the interview talking freely with the detectives, telling them about the previous weekend, meeting with friends at the Walmart on Route 101A in Amherst, driving around looking for yard sales.

“If nothing else, I really don’t want to get involved with this sort of investigation anymore than I have to,” Gribble said. “It kind of makes me nervous.”

Gribble insisted, for hours and in the face of the two troopers demanding, sometimes loudly, that he told the truth, that he had nothing to do with the home invasion and was sure Spader didn’t either.

“I wouldn’t let Steve go in on a robbery if I were there. I wouldn’t let him do that because I know he’d get in trouble,” Gribble said. “The truth is we didn’t do that. We just were driving around. It may sound ridiculous and full of holes, but I wasn’t trying to make myself an alibi. I didn’t know that anyone was going to be killed around anywhere I was driving. I was just driving around having fun with my friends.”

He had known Spader for a long time and trusted him, he said, considered him his best friend.

“Steve’s pretty well-known for being kind of sketchy. You can tell he looks, he looks kind of sketchy but he’s a really good guy, you know. He’s got a good heart,” Gribble said.

Gribble told the troopers he spent about $20 on jewelry he found at a yard sale and sold it at a Cash for Gold kiosk in the Pheasant Lane Mall. He said he and Spader drove around a lot of back roads at random Saturday night and early Sunday morning, stopping once in a little dirt pull-off with a tractor so they could go to the bathroom.

Gribble spent some time saying he was confused about what he did that weekend, saying more than once he didn’t remember some of it because it was so typical – hanging out at the Walmart, driving around the Milford and Amherst area.

He said he read about the murder on The Telegraph website and learned that Jaimie had survived and was in the hospital. The troopers asked him what he thought should happen to the people who performed the attacks.

“I would say they should probably at least go to prison for the rest of their lives. If the jury decides the death penalty, I probably wouldn’t disagree with that,” he said. “It really goes against me to harm a woman in general, but a little girl? That’s like, how could you do that to someone that young?”

It’s not long before Encarnacao and Ardini confront Gribble, telling him they know he’s lying, that they know he was on Trow Road that night and that, if he didn’t attack Kimberly and Jaimie Cates, he knows who did and can help the investigation. They tell him his friends are in other rooms telling very different stories.

“Do you guys really think we did that?” Gribble responded. “You guys really think that we did it, don’t you?”

Soon Gribble tells the troopers he doesn’t believe his friends are trying to blame him.

“Who did it, Chris?” Encarnacao asked.

“I don’t know. That’s your job to figure out,” Gribble said. “If you had evidence, you’d be arresting me right now. If you really had something from them even, that’s enough to charge me. And you’re not arresting me, so I think you’re bullsh****ing me and telling me that my friends are ratting me out.”

“You’re lying. We have evidence. You’re lying,” Encarnacao says later. “You know what happens to people who slice little girls in prison? No? Well, you’re going to find out.”

“Then arrest me because I didn’t do anything,” Gribble retorted. “I didn’t do anything. Steve was with me. We didn’t do anything wrong. If you have evidence against that, then use it instead of just trying to make me change my story.”

In September, Gribble’s attorneys, public defenders Donna Brown and Matthew Hill, filed a motion to suppress the interview. Brown and Hill argued in their motion to suppress and at a Dec. 6 hearing on the motion that the 21-year-old Brookline native’s statements were not voluntary and violated his Miranda rights.

Assistant Attorney General Peter Hinckley said it was clear any methods police used to question Gribble – appealing to his conscience, challenging him and accusing him of lying – were ineffective because during the first portions of the questioning, Gribble stood up to them, maintained his innocence and accused police of trying to mess with him by playing good cop/bad cop.

Gribble is charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to murder and burglary, and witness tampering, and he faces life in prison without parole.

Gribble’s lawyers have told the jury he was struggling with anti-social personality disorder and caved in 2009 after his support system – family, church and Boy Scouts – gave way and he fell in with Spader.

Earlier Tuesday, Dr. Amir Taghinia, a plastic surgeon at Children’s Hospital Boston, testified about his treatment of Jaimie Cates, including participating in the 12-hour surgery she needed following the attack.

Taghinia showed the jury pictures of wounds to her head, face and chest. One blow cracked the outer shell of her skull, Taghinia said, and another broke her jaw and severed a facial nerve.

State troopers Eric Berube and John Sonia testified in the morning and showed several pieces of evidence to jurors, including clothes, jewelry boxes and a wallet that police recovered from the Nashua River, and a hatchet, folding shovel and garbage bags they found in Gribble’s trunk.

By pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, Gribble forfeited his criminal trial, and his lawyers must show his actions were the result of a mental disease or defect.

A forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Albert Drukteinis, testified Monday that he found evidence of no such mental disease or defect after interviewing Gribble last month.

If a jury agrees unanimously that Gribble’s actions were the result of a mental disease or defect, Judge Gillian Abramson would have to determine whether he is still dangerous.

If she decides he is dangerous, Gribble would be committed to a psychiatric unit in the State Prison and be entitled to another hearing every five years to determine whether he still presents a danger.

The jury would have to rule unanimously that Gribble is guilty for him to be sentenced to life in prison without parole.

If neither decision is unanimous, it would be a hung jury and Gribble would be retried.

Joseph G. Cote can be reached at 594-6415 or jcote@nashuatelegraph.com.