Wife Had Her Spouse Tailed Before Death : *Trial: As Donald Miralle’s murder trial opens, witnesses testify that his slain wife had suspected him of infidelity.

VICTORVILLE —  Witnesses in the trial of a La Canada Flintridge man accused of murdering his wife testified that the victim, Tessie Miralle, suspected her husband of infidelity and had hired private investigators to trail him.

Donald Miralle, 47, an Altadena civil engineer, is accused of strangling his wife of 21 years on Sept. 12, 1990, then dumping her body off a dirt road near Victorville in San Bernardino County and setting it on fire.

“A meticulous engineer, a neat and tidy man, attempted to commit a neat and tidy murder,” said San Bernardino County Deputy Dist. Atty. Elizabeth Elwood. “Instead, he left a neat and tidy trail back to himself.”

Among the witnesses during the first day of the trial Tuesday in Victorville Superior Court was the Miralles’ oldest child, Anita, 20, who said her parents had long argued and talked about divorce. But all three of the Miralle children have steadfastly maintained that their father is innocent of murder.

Elwood said a tire tread expert who worked 29 years with the Firestone tire company “proved conclusively” that Miralle’s Chevrolet Suburban made tracks at the scene of the burning body on Valley Vista Road near El Mirage, 15 miles north of Victorville. The expert, Peter McDonald of Ohio, is one of 57 witnesses Elwood plans to call in a trial that lawyers say could last for months.

“Fifty-seven times zero is still zero,” Miralle’s lawyer, A. Brent Carruth of Woodland Hills, said during the trial opening. “Before (detectives) knew Mrs. Miralle was dead, they had decided my client, Mr. Miralle, had done it and they didn’t look anywhere else.”

Miralle was arrested Oct. 3, 1990. Defense attorneys argued at the preliminary hearing last year that the prosecution evidence is flimsy.

Elwood has said her case would hinge largely on circumstantial evidence, including tire and athletic shoe tracks, and Miralle’s behavior around the time his wife disappeared.

Arriving home the night of Sept. 12, Miralle “did something he only did when he knew (his wife) wouldn’t be home,” Elwood said. “He asked (the housekeeper) for the grocery list and did the grocery shopping.”

Tessie Miralle, 49, hired Los Angeles private investigator John C. Flentz to follow her husband Sept. 7 and 8, 1990, according to police records and Flentz’s testimony Tuesday. Tessie Miralle then dismissed Flentz and on Sept. 10 hired a cousin’s friend, loading dock worker Huberto Salinas of Los Angeles, to watch her husband.

Salinas and Tessie Miralle drove together around Pasadena, checking health clubs for her husband’s whereabouts in the early morning hours of Sept. 12, Salinas testified, before he left Tessie Miralle at her home about 9 a.m. Both investigators said they did not see Donald Miralle with another woman.

Tessie Miralle missed a noon lunch appointment with a friend on the day she disappeared, and her maroon Jaguar was found abandoned 12 days later in Monrovia. Donald Miralle told police he last saw his wife at 11 a.m. Sept. 12 at his Altadena office.

Anita Miralle testified her parents lived practically separate lives. She told police on the day after her mother’s disappearance that she suspected her father may have been connected to her mother’s leaving.

Donald Miralle has been at home with his children since he was released on $500,000 bail shortly after his arrest.