Buried several pages into a brief by federal prosecutors in their case against Chadrick Fulks is a phrase summing up their strategy for South Carolina's first federal death penalty trial.
Fulks is "a pathological liar," they write.
Fulks has already pleaded guilty to kidnapping and carjacking resulting in death along with six other counts. A jury of 10 women and two men will start determining Tuesday whether he is put to death or spends the rest of his life in prison without parole.
Prosecutors said Fulks and his co-defendant, Branden Basham, helped each other escape from a Kentucky jail and elude authorities for about two weeks in November 2002.
They say the pair killed two women, tied a Kentucky man to a tree and left him for dead and shot at a South Carolina man. Basham also faces a federal death penalty trial in South Carolina later this year.
Fulks is fighting for his life in the death of Alice Donovan, who prosecutors said was abducted from a Wal-Mart parking lot in Conway and was taken to North Carolina. The Galivants Ferry woman's body has never been found, but both men have told authorities she was killed.
In pretrial hearings, Fulks has looked scared and meek, especially since a hearing where U.S. District Judge Joe Anderson reminded Fulks he would either be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison.
Defense lawyers will use that behavior to bolster their case that Fulks has always been a follower and only did what Basham wanted him to do during the crime spree, according to court documents and hearings.
Their strategy can be seen in their efforts to have Fulks plead guilty by entering his confession into evidence. In it, he lays all the blame for the killing of Donovan and West Virginia college student Samantha Burns on Basham.
Prosecutors will counter with a host of witnesses that will testify about how Fulks was a compulsive liar.
When Fulks was in jail in Horry County, before he escaped in Kentucky, he told his cellmate he didn't have money for bail and his 2-year-old daughter was sick and near death in West Virginia, according to a prosecution brief.
The inmate's mother felt so sorry for Fulks, she gave him bail money and let him borrow her car. Fulks said he would return it in a week and frequently called to update his daughter's worsening condition before disappearing, prosecutors said.
Fulks did not have a sick daughter, prosecutors said.
Fulks tried to help authorities find Donovan's body in North Carolina and Burns' body in West Virginia, but searchers came up empty.
Prosecutors think Fulks was only pretending to help. In their brief, they point out Fulks said Burns, a Marshall University student from West Hamlin, W.Va., was killed in a wooded area, but told searchers to look for her body in an area with no trees.
The defense also was dealt a blow with a recent ruling allowing prosecutors to call three women who they say will testify Fulks beat them during their relationships. Also, the judge will allow testimony about how Fulks tried to escape while getting medical attention in Columbia.
Still to be decided is whether Anderson will allow testimony that Fulks allegedly abused his son. Fulks was indicted on an abuse charge the day before he escaped from jail.
Prosecutors also want to discuss the death of another of Fulks' sons in 1995. An autopsy indicated the infant had been abused, but a grand jury in West Virginia did not indict him.
Prosecutors have listed 145 witnesses, including men who saw Basham and Fulks driving Donovan's BMW on a dirt road near a hunting club in North Carolina shortly before Fulks said she was killed.
Also on the list is a man who says the pair tied him to a tree and stole his car and two men who say Fulks imitated an FBI agent and robbed them at gunpoint after their RV broke down on the side of a highway in 2002.
Prosecutors said it could take three weeks to call all of their witnesses.