Columnist Jeff German: Surveying the court scene during a dramatic announcement in the murder case of Melissa James

Thursday, Feb. 2, 2006 | 8:41 a.m.

Jeff German's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday in the Sun. Reach him at german@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4067.

Dressed in chains and navy blue jail garb, and with a horde of reporters and cameramen watching her every move, Kelly Ryan looked lost and scared Wednesday as bailiffs escorted her to a seat in Justice Court.

After she walked past her co-defendant, husband and well-known bodybuilding champion Craig Titus, who was sitting in chains with other prisoners toward the back of the courtroom, Titus looked back and appeared to mouth the words, "Don't say anything."

Titus, sporting a crew cut and looking calm and buff, with bulging muscles on his arms, later glanced back at Ryan two more times as she sat wide-eyed a couple of rows behind him.

The 33-year-old Ryan, her dark brown hair hanging straight and past her shoulders, had reason to appear frightened.

Prosecutors had just dropped a bombshell on her -- managing to upstage the couple's first Las Vegas courtroom appearance together since their Dec. 23 arrest in Boston in the slaying of their live-in assistant, Melissa James.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Robert Daskas told Justice of the Peace Joe M. Bonaventure in court that he and co-prosecutor Becky Goettsch had filed an amended complaint now charging Ryan with murder. It is the same charge prosecutors earlier had filed against the 41-year-old Titus.

Ryan, a national fitness champion, and her defense lawyer Tom Pitaro learned moments before the hearing that prosecutors had raised the stakes with her in the high-profile case.

Previously, Ryan had only been charged as an accessory in the death of James -- whose body was discovered Dec. 14 on a rural road outside Las Vegas in the trunk of a burned-out 2003 Jaguar registered to Ryan.

According to police reports, the victim's head was wrapped in grey duct tape, and a "white fabric ligature" was tied around her neck in a partial knot.

Both Ryan and Titus also now are facing an additional charge of kidnapping the 28-year-old former dance instructor, whom the couple has claimed embezzled money from them.

"Over the past several days, we've obtained evidence that implicates Kelly Ryan in the murder," Daskas told me after the hearing.

He declined to explain, but he hinted that evidence may soon become public. A bail hearing for both defendants was scheduled for Feb. 10.

If Wednesday's stunning development is any indication, it won't be the last surprise in this intriguing murder case that has attracted intense interest from the national media.

The amended complaint may put more on the line for Ryan and Titus, but it also leaves plenty of openings for their defense lawyers.

Prosecutors disclosed for the first time that they have multiple theories of how James died.

In the amended complaint they said a Taser gun was used on James and that she was either strangled, suffocated or both and also might have been given "morphine and/or a related drug" before she died.

"As this case develops, facts are going to come to light to demonstrate that Craig is 100 percent innocent," said Richard Schonfeld, local counsel for Titus.

"This is definitely a defensible case."