YORK, Pa. — Ronald and Amelia “Sue” Witman still live in the middle-class, suburban New Freedom home where their 13-year-old son, Gregory, was murdered on Oct. 2, 1998. Their older son is in jail for the killing.

Since then, the Witmans' world has shrunk. They’ve lost friends who could not understand their unwavering belief that their older son, Zachary, did not kill his brother. They’ve been told by strangers to “just get over it” and get on with their lives.

But they can’t.

They say Zach could not have stabbed and slashed Greg more than 100 times — 65 times to the neck — and nearly decapitated him with a flimsy penknife.

They say he could not have killed Greg and buried the murder weapon in 7½ minutes, and, in the middle of that, still sounded normal when he answered a phone call from one of Greg’s friends.

They say Zach had no reason to kill Greg. The boys loved one another, and Zach had never been in trouble.

Their son’s trial attorney did not call expert witnesses, allowed in incriminating evidence, and failed to convince the jury Zach wouldn’t have killed his brother, and physically couldn’t have done it.

David McGlaughlin said he believes Zach is innocent and understands the Witmans feel he did not do enough for him. But he said he gave Zach a good, honest effort.

“I lived with that evidence for two years,” he said. “I feel terrible for those people.”

Now, the Witmans’ hope lies with the Pennsylvania Superior Court and the slim possibility Zach, 27, will get a new trial.

The Witmans, who recently spoke at length about their son’s case for the first time since the trial, said they would go so far as having Greg’s body exhumed for more forensic testing to prove Zach’s innocence.

“I would say the general population believes one of two things: either that we just don’t want to believe it, OK, because we don’t want to lose our other son — we don’t want to open our eyes to the reality,” Ron Witman said. “... Or the other is that we’re just wacko, which has been said on more than one occasion, especially about me.”

But the Witmans say they know more of the evidence than anyone does, including the jury.

One of the prosecutors who convicted Zach said he understands the Witmans’ need to come up with theories to defend their son.

“They have one child who is deceased and another child who is doing life in prison without parole for his murder,” Chief Deputy Prosecutor Timothy Barker said. “They can manufacture reasonable doubt any way that they need to go on with each day.”

After reviewing court documents and a photograph of the murder weapon, and, in one case, handling a similar knife, some forensic and legal experts said they agree the Witmans are raising questions that should be answered.

Some said the plastic-handled knife with a 1 3/4-inch blade could have been the murder weapon but likely was too small and flimsy to inflict more than 100 wounds without breaking.

“That’s an incredible beating this knife was able to withstand,” said Evan Nappen, a New Jersey attorney who specializes in knife and gun cases.

Barker said no one, including himself, wanted to believe Zach killed his younger brother. “But everything we did was based on following the physical evidence,” he said. “Is there any question he got a fair trial? There can be no question. It was all about the physical evidence and the facts that flowed from it.”

Family and friends have said Zach and Greg had no hint of animosity between them.

Last month, Zach wrote from jail that he loved Greg and would never hurt him.

But the defense could not convince the judge to admit “relationship” testimony. Instead, the jury heard from character witnesses who were limited by law to saying Zach had an “excellent” reputation “in the community.”

Ron Witman said he wanted to tell the jury that, weeks before Greg’s death, Zach planned and built a soccer net for Greg.

The parents said police and prosecutors never considered how close the brothers were or tried to figure out why someone would want to kill Greg.

“Motive is how you find the murderer because that usually points you in the direction of what happened,” Ron Witman said.

Police and prosecutors, however, said that’s not the case.

They focus on the physical evidence, said Southern Regional Police Detective Roger Goodfellow, the lead investigator in the murder. Physical evidence doesn’t lie.

By law, the prosecution does not have to offer a motive for a crime. Judges tell jurors they can consider a lack of motive with other evidence.

Greg’s friend, Erynn Jeffery, called the Witmans’ home at 3:09 p.m. the day Greg was killed. Someone picked up a downstairs phone but immediately hung up.

Greg walked through the door about 3:10 p.m., and both the prosecution and defense believe he was attacked in the foyer.

So, Ron Witman asked, how could Zach, who was home from school ill, have sounded normal when he answered a second call around 3:15 p.m.?

“He’s either started murdering Greg, in the process of murdering Greg or done murdering Greg, but meanwhile, he’s not out of breath, he sounds normal, nothing out of the ordinary,” Ron Witman said.

And the Witmans question why Zach — if he killed Greg — would have called York County 911 so soon to report finding his brother’s body. He controlled the crime scene and could have changed his bloody clothes.

Prosecutors, however, said it had to be enough time for somebody to have committed the murder, and the only evidence the Witmans’ attorney offered was the phone call.

“So it was plenty of time for someone else to have gotten in the house, lie in wait, ambush Gregory, leave, dispose of the evidence in the backyard, and then get safely away with nobody seeing this individual throughout the entire neighborhood?” Barker asked. “But it’s not sufficient time for the person who was home in the house already to have committed the homicide?”

At Greg’s autopsy, the day after he was killed, a pathologist clipped his fingernails, bagged them and turned them over to police.

Southern Regional Police still has those clippings. More than 20 DNA tests were performed on evidence, but the clippings were not tested.

The prosecution didn’t need the clippings to be examined for DNA, Barker said. The vast amount of Greg’s blood on them would make it hard to find other DNA.

Zach’s appeal attorneys now argue his trial attorney was ineffective for not having DNA tests done on the clippings.

At trial, his defense attorney argued that the prosecution should have had the testing done.

The Witmans want that testing, confident it will establish that Zach is not the killer.

The Witmans’ new arguments might not be enough to get Zach a new trial, University of Pittsburgh law professor John Burkoff said.

“They need something on the order of a smoking gun, and they don’t have it yet,” he said.

The parents weighed the options for their older son when he was charged. Ron Witman said he considered telling Zach, then 15, to admit to the murder if it meant he would be prosecuted as a minor and subject to far fewer years in custody.

But the father said his son looked him in the eye and replied: “Dad, how can I possibly admit to something I didn’t do? And I would never hurt Greg.”

Ron and Sue Witman travel about 280 miles roundtrip to the state prison in Huntingdon County to see Zach every week.

He doesn’t talk about his case, his mother said. It hurts too much.

“He misses Greg desperately,” Sue Witman said.

Zach declined to be interviewed for this story through his counselor, prison spokeswoman Lisa Hollibaugh said.