ATLANTA -- The defense began on Tuesday in the trial of the man accused of hiring a hit man to kill his daughter-in-law.

Ricky's father, Chiman Rai, 68, a native of India and a former math professor at a historically black college, is suspected of hiring a hit man to kill Sparkle Reid.

Two months after Chiman Rai’s son, Ricky Rai, met Sparkle in October 1998, she was pregnant with their daughter, Analla, and in March 2000 they were wed.

Sparkle Rai was found dead in her apartment in April 2000, her daughter unharmed nearby. But investigators could find little hard evidence pointing to a killer.

A few weeks after their marriage, she was found dead in her Union City, Ga. apartment, strangled with a vacuum cord and stabbed more than a dozen times.

The prosecution said they believe the motive was race. "Because she married his son, because she had a child with his son, and, ladies and gentleman, because she was black," prosecutor Sheila Ross argued to jurors.

Defense attorneys contend the case is not so cut-and-dry. Attorney Don Samuel acknowledged Chiman Rai was "not crazy" about his son's relationship, but said he would never pay someone $10,000 to have her killed.

"It was outrageous," Samuel said of the killing. "But members of the jury, that outrage, that tragedy, will not be mitigated or eliminated by the conviction of an innocent man."

Any animosity, Samuel said, was because he didn't know enough about his son's bride and worried he might be taking drugs and stealing money from the hotel.

"Don't get me wrong. There was friction," said Samuel. "But it's nothing different than any parent would do with their children, especially with an 18-year-old."

Rickey King, the manager of a tire story in Jackson, Miss. Right across from the Wee Land grocery store owned by Chiman Rai, said that Rai was known for lending money to people who needed it to pay their bills.

King said "A racist? No, no, no. Somebody's lying, now, I know."

Former pro football player Jimmy Smith testified in his sales job for Anheiser Busch and said that Rai was one of his favorite customers, "He's not a racist. No, he's not a racist."

He suggested Green and Evans may have ordered the hit on their own, perhaps in pursuit of drug money.

He also pointed to a series of contradictory statements they made to investigators as evidence they were "two of the most unbelievable witnesses" he's ever heard.

Prosecutors said that if the defense was going to ask witnesses about Rai’s good reputation, then they would ask about his bad reputation.

They asked each witness if they were aware that Rai was convicted in 1985 of trafficking food stamps, something the jury heard for the first time on Tuesday.