Beverley Lawson told the jury Friday she wasn't concerned upon finding her adoptive son gone when she and her husband returned home from a trucking job in August 2003.

Samuel Adam Lawson -- who is accused of aggravated murder and attempted murder -- had been living with his adoptive parents since June after quitting his trucking job due to an injury and losing his license for driving under the influence of alcohol.

While his parents were on the trucking trip, he took his truck for a week-long camping trip in the Diamond Lake area, near where Noris Hilde was murdered and Sherl Hilde was critically injured at their campsite at Briggs Camp on Aug. 21. The day of their murder, the Hildes found Lawson using their campsite. The prosecution called Lawson's adoptive parents, Beverley and Carl, to the stand Friday.

Beverley said she spoke with her son the day before they returned home, and he said nothing about planning on leaving for a camping trip. She also said it wasn't unusual to find him gone without having left a note.

She said her husband noticed their Marlin Model 1894 rifle missing a few days later.

"(Carl) just wondered if there was a hunting season and one of the boys had come home and borrowed it," she said.

They thought "maybe something happened to him up there, that his pickup mighta been broke down, anything," she said.

When they didn't see it at the lake, they went to the Toketee Ranger Station, where they spoke with Douglas County Sheriff's Detective Chris Merrifield. Carl seemed concerned that Sam might have shot himself, Merrifield would later testify.

When Senior Deputy District Attorney Rick Wesenberg asked Beverley why Carl would have thought Sam shot himself, she said "'Cause anything could have happened."

Beverley said Sam's demeanor seemed normal prior to his disappearance.

When Merrifield testified, he described the conversation he had with the Lawsons at the ranger station.

Merrifield said when he first arrived, Beverley was fairly composed and Carl was clearly agitated.

"He was pacing back and forth. He seemed really stressed out," he said.

Merrifield said Carl also told him he'd noticed a change in his son's behavior. Normally he was hard working, but he'd just been lying around, not doing much of anything since he'd moved in with his parents.

Once Merrifield told Carl the man who had died was older and didn't fit Sam Lawson's description, Carl seemed to relax somewhat, Merrifield said.

The prosecution also called Sam Lawson's brother, Pete Moen of Winston, to testify.

Moen said his brother was waiting in the parking lot of Glide Lumber when Moen took his lunch break the morning of Aug. 22. Moen asked his brother about the gun, and Lawson denied taking it.

Lawson ended up going home with his brother that night, leaving his truck, which was out of gas, at Glide Lumber. Moen said his brother seemed anxious.

"He told me he was worried about a warrant, a failure to pay a fine on a DUI," he said.

Moen made a call to a relative who was a cop, and found out there was no warrant for Lawson. The news didn't seem to ease his brother's mind, he said.

Moen confirmed many of the statements he made in Merrifield's report, including that Lawson told him at one point, "He'd never been in trouble like this before and didn't know what to do."

Moen said he thought his brother may have been talking about his current situation: jobless and without a license.

Both Moen and Beverley Lawson said they saw inaccuracies or information taken out of context in Merrifield's report. Moen said the entire conversation should have been recorded, rather than just a summary of his statements.

During Merrifield's testimony, he also described the crime scene and the soil disturbances he found north of the campsite near Highway 138 East. In the embankment leading up to the highway, he found a place where it looked like a foot had slipped. He found another impression with distinct parallel lines. The print was so small, he assumed it was a child's and didn't relate to the case -- until he saw Lawson's shoes and noticed that much of the lined pattern was worn away.

"I thought, 'Whoa, that looks like it corresponds,'" he said.

He said rain had "substantially" degraded the print when he showed it to Oregon State Police criminalist Jeff Dovci the following day.

It was the same print Dovci said could have come from Lawson's shoe in his testimony earlier in the week.

Merrifield's testimony is expected to continue Tuesday.

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