Photograph of Walter Bethel, a witness for the defense, who contradicted prosecution witnesses who said that they saw someone who looked like Burton Abbott struggling in a car with someone who looked like Stephanie Bryan. The December 14, 1955, Oakland Tribune reported the following about Bethel and the trial: "A goateed ex-sea captain provided the first major contradiction in the prosecution's case against Burton W. Abbott yesterday when he testified that Abbott was not the man he saw in a roadside struggle with a young girl on Mt. Diablo Blvd. on April 28, the day Stephanie Bryan disappeared." "Testimony of the ex-skipper, 10-year-old Walter R. Bethel,...conflicted with that offered earlier in the trial by four persons called by the prosecution to testify to what they saw on Mt. Diablo Blvd. on April 28." ..... "Bethel was...positive for the defense tat the man he saw in a car on Mt. Diablo Blvd. was not Abbott..." "Bethel yesterday said that Abbott, standing in court in the same blue suit, was not the man he saw. All four prosecution witnesses testified that the car in which they observed a struggle was a 1949 or 1950 Chevrolet sedan. Bethel declared without hesitation that the car was a Pontiac sedan."...