Lawyers questioned Maximina Macaraeg Friday seeking to uncover intimate details about the domestic life of her employers and the crucial aftermath of the murder in the longest testimony in the case so far.

The Kissel apartment, testified Macaraeg, was left wide open to police officers, friends, family and lawyers for several days after the victim's death.

Nancy Kissel, 40, is accused of serving her husband a milkshake laced with sedatives which left him unconscious as she bludgeoned him to death in the master bedroom of their Parkview, Tai Tam home on the night of November 2, 2003.

She told hospital workers and police officers at the time that her husband was drunk and beat her up after she refused to have sex with him.

Macaraeg said she was only told by police not to go into the master bedroom of the flat after the body was found, but that the area was not cordoned off.

Senior counsel for the accused, Gary Plowman, asked Macaraeg if she remembered whether Robert Kissel had kept a baseball bat in the master bedroom.

Holding up the prosecution's photo of the master bedroom, taken after the alleged murder, he asked Macaraeg to point out where the bat was kept.

Macaraeg pointed to an empty space between furniture. ``That's where he kept the baseball bat,'' she said.

Macaraeg said that, on November 8, 2003, she found a black plastic bag filled with bloodstained items in the room of the Kissels' two daughters when she returned to pack some clothes for the children who had, by then, moved to a hotel. She said she was surprised that the police had not previously found the bag.

Referring to another prosecution photo, Plowman asked, ``Is that the condition in which the girls' room is normally kept?''

Macaraeg replied, ``That day, that was the normal condition [but] the mess is not normally like that.''

According to Macaraeg, in the days following the discovery of the banker's carpet-wrapped decomposing body, lawyers, friends, family and police went in and out of the Kissel residence relatively freely.

She said she once had to go to the apartment to let in the accused's lawyers. ``What about the police, how did they get access?'' asked Plowman.

Macaraeg answered, ``That's what I do not know.''

In preparing for the Kissel children's return to the United States on November 19, Macaraeg said she was instructed by the accused's friends to pack up unwanted, but usable items, to donate to the Salvation Army. She also said she threw away items in a medicine cabinet in the master bedroom's bathroom.

Macaraeg Thursday was questioned on the victim's drinking habits, about which she said she had ``no idea.''

Plowman Friday showed a photo of the living room with a liquor cabinet in it. ``Let me see if I can remind you,'' he said to Macaraeg.

In another close-up photograph, Plowman pointed out a bottle of Scotch whisky. ``Does that refresh your memory?'' asked Plowman. ``Did Mr Kissel like to drink Scotch whisky?''

Macaraeg replied, ``I have no idea.''

Referring to the defense's photo, prosecutor Peter Chapman, inquired about a doll's house in the living room. Macaraeg said she had taken it from the children's room as she was packing their clothes after the alleged murder.

Chapman noted Macaraeg said lawyers, family and friends of the accused had visited the Kissel apartment after the alleged murder.

``Did they keep anything for themselves?'' he asked. Macaraeg said a friend of the accused had kept a camera.

Macaraeg Thursday also said she did not see any injuries on the accused in her three years of employment.

Plowman, for the accused, said, between September and October 2003 ``Mrs Kissel was sporting a black eye and wearing dark glasses. Do you remember that?'' Macaraeg replied, ``No.''

Plowman asked, ``Is it right to say that Mr Kissel was a man who liked to be in control of the family?'' Macaraeg replied, ``That is what I feel, he wants to discipline the family.''

The lawyer asked, ``Including his wife?'' Macaraeg replied, ``Possibly.''

The trial enters its third week Monday.

albert.wong@singtaonewscorp.com