Testimony resumed Friday at Orange County Court in Goshen for a pre-trial hearing for accused cold case killer Edward Holley.

Holley is accused of bludgeoning his ex-girlfriend, 20-year-old Meagan McDonald, in 2003 and dumping her body in a field. He was charged by state police last year after a 20-year investigation.

The hearing, which began on Thursday, is analyzing several statements Holley made to police about the killing to see if they can be used at his trial.

State police investigator Samantha Gau is testifying about a recorded interview with Holley in 2019 when he voluntarily agreed to go to the Middletown barracks to discuss a separate case about allegedly harassing a woman during a basketball game. Gau says after reading Holley his Miranda rights, and interviewing Holley about the allegations, a separate investigator stated he wanted to interview him about the McDonald murder case.

The lengthy video was played publicly on Friday for the first time. Holley is heard, at first, calmly discussing the separate harassment allegation which occurred while he was a coach. Gau, who was a trooper at the time, is heard on the recording saying Holley was accused of telling a woman after his daughter was allegedly referred to as a b****, “I’ll get my Middletown possie and show you what I’m about.” Gau then asks Holley, who’s wheelchair-bound, about his “temper.” Holley replied that he used to have a “temper” but that his outlook on life “changed after his accident.”

“I’m an angry guy as well,” says Paul Weber, Holley’s attorney. “That doesn’t mean he’s a killer or I’m a killer. We all get angry.”

A male state police investigator is later seen on the video entering the interview room and asks to speak to Holley about the McDonald case. Holley agrees and says he’s going to cry. The investigator shows Holley a photo of McDonald and Holley turns the photo face down on the table. He’s then heard talking about their group of friends at the time of the murder and says he believes a man named “Paulie,” who McDonald dated before him, may have killed her.

“We got into an argument and for a long time, I thought it was my fault,” Holley is heard saying on the recording. “I started to see a therapist. I thought I pushed her back into the arms of the person I thought did it.”

Holley says Paulie had a history of domestic violence against McDonald and that he’d previously gotten into a physical altercation with Paulie when he allegedly hit McDonald in the head with a crutch.

Holley is heard repeatedly saying in the recording how much he loved McDonald and shows police a tattoo he got in her memory. He says they got into an argument about money a few days before her death, that they were both at a house party the night she was killed but she stayed outside, and he didn’t see her. Holley said on the recording that a friend contacted him the next day and said McDonald was killed.

Holley’s attorney says his client “had nothing to do with the crime,” and that state police refuse to look at as many as 10 other suspects in the case.

“For some reason, they’re focused on Ed Holley and no matter what happens in this case, they’re not going to let it go, even though the evidence shows he had nothing to do with this,” Weber says.

A special prosecutor assigned to the case and the attorney for the McDonald family have not responded to our requests for comment about the hearing.

On Thursday, an Orange County Court judge denied the defense’s request to reassign the case after an alleged conflict with a law-clerk who was a former assistant district attorney assigned to the case. The judge said, instead, the clerk would not have any further involvement.

Weber says additional police testimony and other recorded police interviews with Holley will be revealed when the pretrial hearing resumes Oct. 2.

The trial is expected to begin in January, according to Holley’s defense.