DALTON, Ga. — After six days, the state rested its case on Monday against accused murderer Aaron Jerome Howell after more police interviews with Howell were played for the jury. There was no confession of guilt.

Over and over when asked about the death of Paul Edward Guerrant, who was beaten the night of Dec. 22, 2014, Howell repeated the same phrase: “There is nothing to speak of.”

“Did you kill Paul Guerrant?” Detective Chris Tucker with the Dalton Police Department asked at one point. “There is nothing to speak of,” Howell answered. 

Later, Detective John Helton told Howell he knew Howell was guilty and that he would sleep soundly the night of the April 8, 2015, interviews after Howell was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and murder.

“I don’t come to any conclusion except you did this,” Helton said. “I have been with the police a long time, and the one thing that is constant through all these years is there are no coincidences. There are no coincidences. In my mind, I am certain that you have done this.”

“There is nothing to speak of,” Howell answered over and over during the nearly six hours of interviews presented in Whitfield County Superior Court.

Detectives told Howell lies to try to get a confession, pleading with him to tell them why Guerrant died. Tucker said Guerrant’s DNA was found on the jacket and orange knit cap Howell was wearing the night of the attack against Guerrant. In testimony last week, forensics experts said there was not a usable sample to determine if there was any DNA evidence linking Howell to Guerrant. 

“I wanted him to tell us why he did it,” Tucker said under cross-examination by Howell’s attorney, Cat Pyne. “It was a tool … a something we had come up with to use to get him to admit why he had committed a crime. For me, it was a tactic I was using.”

“So lying is a tactic?” Pyne asked.

Tucker did not answer.

Helton repeated those claims when questioning Howell later in the interviews. 

Under direct questioning by District Attorney Bert Poston, Tucker admitted to lying to Howell but said investigators were convinced they had the man responsible for Guerrant’s death. Guerrant, who was walking home along Dozier Street from a meeting at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church sometime after 9 p.m. that night, was found face down on the road in a pool of his blood. He died in a Chattanooga hospital. In his opening statement, Poston told jurors Guerrant had been struck more than two dozen times with a ball-peen hammer.

“To our investigation at this point, we were certain we had the person who killed Paul Guerrant,” Tucker said. “I wanted him to be sure that we knew about it and knew he did this. We wanted to let him know we got him and he would tell us why. Unfortunately, we never got that. No explanation whatsoever.”

During the time between the initial questioning of Howell on Jan. 7, 2015, and his arrest in April, Howell made regular contact with authorities, checking in daily with the police department. Tucker said Howell was cooperative about his activities on the day of the attack unless pressed on around the time Guerrant’s body was discovered at about 9:36 p.m.

Howell told detectives he had been at the community center when it closed around 9 p.m. and went to his backpacks which were hidden on Janice Street, which is connected to Dozier Street some hundreds of yards from where Guerrant’s body was found. 

“When he gets into the interview, talk about his movements, he gives a very detailed timeline of his night,” Tucker said. “There wasn’t anything bizarre … but as we got closer to placing him at the murder scene, it would take on a more spiritual talk.”

Spiritual, and at times rambling discussions filled with talk of Scripture and the duality of good and evil with references to the movies “Hellboy” and “The Matrix” along with the biblical stories of Cain and Abel and Adam and Eve.

During one of the interviews, Howell said he had previously been diagnosed as a schizophrenic.

“Have you ever had any training with questioning a mentally disabled suspect?” Pyne asked Tucker, who said he had not.

Howell originally pleaded not guilty in August 2015. In February 2016, attorneys on both sides agreed Howell was incompetent to stand trial. After six months of treatment in a state mental hospital, Judge Cindy Morris declared Howell competent in October 2016.

Under questioning from Pyne, Tucker acknowledged that while he had researched the movie “Hellboy,” he hadn’t researched any of the specific Bible verses Howell had talked about in the interviews. 

The defense was expected to present its case Tuesday.