The prosecutor who led the investigation into the 2010 murder and dismemberment of disabled Australian schoolgirl Zahra Baker claims the lawyer who defended her killer mishandled evidence.
The claim came as the prosecutor, Jay Gaither, battles defence lawyer Scott Reilly in the election for district attorney of the North Carolina region that covers Baker's former home town of Hickory.
Reilly defended Zahra's stepmother, Elisa Baker, and helped secure a plea deal allowing Baker to avoid the death penalty and a life sentence for the gruesome murder of the 10-year-old.
Gaither said on Tuesday prosecutors and law enforcement "were hampered by Scott Reilly's mishandling of evidence" in Zahra's case.
"He removed evidence from the ground, and he visited Zahra Baker's remains prior to Elisa Baker leading law enforcement to her," he told the Charlotte Observer newspaper.
Reilly called the claims "ludicrous" and "a desperate attempt to try to smear me", but the lawyer acknowledged finding a hacksaw in a drain and not handing it over to law enforcement for two days.
"We were trying to corroborate our client's story and in doing so I did discover some evidence," he said.
"The evidence was in danger of being destroyed if we didn't collect it immediately."
Reilly said the saw was in a drain near a river, and with a storm approaching, he feared it would be washed away.
A private detective accompanying him took the saw and handled it in a manner "consistent with rules-of-evidence collection".
Many in North Carolina and Australia were furious when Baker avoided the death penalty and was offered a second-degree murder charge plea deal, which led to an 18-and-a-half-year jail sentence.
Zahra's father, Adam Baker, has returned to Australia to live.
The girl, who battled bone cancer, had one leg amputated when she was five years old and needed hearing aids.
