BRENTWOOD – Convicted murderer Michael Benton told jurors that after he killed Jack Reid in June 2005, his friend Jesse Brooks wired him $800 to spend two weeks in Las Vegas.

Lawyers spent part of yesterday arguing whether it was actually Brooks, 32, on trial for conspiracy to commit murder, or his millionaire father, John "Jay" Brooks, who sent the money though Western Union.

Benton spent his third day on the stand testifying that Jesse Brooks had participated in two efforts to help his father kill Reid between 2003 and 2005.

Benton was paid $5,000 cash the day he and the elder Brooks bludgeoned Reid to death inside a Deerfield horse barn with a 3-pound sledgehammer.

"At that point, he said there would be more to come," Benton testified.

But when Benton asked for more money two months later, John Brooks instructed him to speak to his son, according to Benton's testimony.

Defense lawyers have cast those accounts as muddled, largely because Benton's memory of dates have been blurred by years of crack cocaine use and alcoholism.

Lawyer William Kettlewell said phone records between Benton and John Brooks around the time the money order was made suggest it could not have been Jesse Brooks.

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Benton maintained his memory was correct. He testified that he received two money orders -- for $400 then $800 -- before coming to Las Vegas to visit the Brooks family.

Prosecutors claim that Jesse Brooks participated in both efforts ordered by his father to kill Reid in 2003 and 2005.

Reid was accused of stealing a pair of moving trucks he was hired to load at a warehouse outside of Manchester Airport. The Brooks family was in the process of moving from Londonderry to Las Vegas. Yet no evidence ever surfaced linking Reid to the thefts.

Benton said his failure to kill Reid in 2003 with his friend, Andrew Carter of Derry, is what prompted Jesse Brooks to return to New Hampshire from Beverly Hills, Calif., to help his father with the murder.

"Jesse was back because Andy and myself didn't get the job done to kill Jack Reid," Benton said. "He was back to finish that job."

One year ago yesterday John Brooks, a Derry native, was spared the death penalty and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Brooks' death penalty trial was New Hampshire's first in nearly half a century.

The verdict came after a two-month trial in which jurors found that Brooks had committed enough aggravating acts to warrant a death sentence, but decided to spare his life.

Before his arrest in November 2006, John Brooks was known as one of the most successful businessmen in New Hampshire. He created the medical supply company, PolyVac, which he sold for $30 million in 1996.

A jury found he organized the murder-for-hire scheme to kill Reid and delivered fatal blows to Reid's chest during the attack in Deerfield. Reid, 57, of Derry, worked as a self-employed mover and hauler throughout Southern New Hampshire when he was killed.