LOWER TOWNSHIP - Police received about 50 handguns, rifles and a sawed-off shotguns Saturday afternoon through a gun buy-back program offered through the Cape May County Prosecutor's Office.

The program at the Villas Fire Department hall on Bayshore Road was the first of four offered throughout the county.

The next one will take place starting at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Wildwood Recreation Center on Rio Grande Avenue in Wildwood.

Prosecutor Robert Taylor said the program is about removing unwanted guns from homes for safety reasons.

The guns have to be in working order for them to be purchased, he said.

The going price for weapons was $25 for shotguns or rifles, $50 for handguns and $100 for assault weapons.

It was Feb. 23, 1990, and the two men were at the home they shared in Middle Township.

White said Jesse Watkins, Craig White's cousin, arrived at the home because he had planned to go into the woods to cut poles.

White said Craig White told him he wasn't going to go, but in the end the two left together.

"He told me he would be right back," White said.

"Did you ever see Craig again?" Chief Assistant Prosecutor Rob Johnson asked.

"No," White replied.

Superior Court Judge Raymond Batten ruled Thursday that White's recollections about that day, along with the statements of several other witnesses who testified Thursday, would be admissible when the murder case against Watkins goes to trial.

Watkins, 46, is charged with a single count of first-degree murder in Craig White's death.

Craig White was 18 years old when he disappeared from the Whitesboro section of the township. His body has never been found.

Thursday's hearings were the latest in a series of pre-trial events held to establish what evidence would be admissible in a case that relies heavily on the memories of those who knew White and Watkins at the time.

Among the witnesses were Watkins' former girlfriend, Dawn Perodomo, who again told of the day she admitted to Watkins that she and White had had an affair in 1989.

Watkins' brother, Donald Watkins, was also a witness called by Johnson to testify to an occasion when he and his brother were in the midst of a disagreement while sharing a home in Florida.

Donald Watkins told investigators at the time that his brother told him to get out of his face "before I do you like I did Craig."

He testified Thursday that he is a recovering drug addict and was using drugs in 2007, the year he told investigators about the exchange.

Johnson said Watkins sounded certain of what was said in a tape-recorded statement.

But he testified Thursday that "as of today, no, I'm not 100 percent sure" what was said.

"As God is my witness, I do not believe (my brother) is capable of doing anything of that sort," Donald Watkins said.

A more recent girlfriend, Margarette Marion, testified that she knew Watkins when he was living in North Carolina.

Marion had previously told retired Middle Township detective Blake Moore that Watkins confessed to her and once told her that, "The last time a girlfriend cheated on me (the other man) ended up dead."

Johnson said the woman said Watkins admitted to hitting White with a brick, shooting him and throwing him in a river.

Other witnesses also testified that Watkins offered different versions of where he last saw White. One said Watkins left White in Buena, while another testified that Watkins said he last saw White at a shopping complex in Cape May Court House.

Still another witness, James Williams, said he and Watkins were fishing buddies and once discussed how to get rid of a body.

Also Thursday, Batten ruled against defense attorney Christopher Robertson's motion to seek a change of venue.

Robertson, with the aid of an expert report, argued that the pre-trial publicity given the case by The Press of Atlantic City and other local newspapers would make it impossible to find fair and impartial jurors.

Articles about pre-trial hearings such as the one held Thursday, Robertson said, "painted my client in a negative light."

He said Watkins had been the subject of "frequent and negative pre-trial publicity" since he was arrested for murder in April 2007.

Watkins remains in the Cape May County jail in lieu of $500,000 bail.

Johnson argued that Robertson's expert had provided an incomplete report with no proof to show the news articles had tainted Cape May County's jury pool.

He pointed to the case of Jesse Timmendequas, the man convicted of the 1994 murder of Megan Kanka in Hamilton Township, Mercer County.

Timmendequas, Johnson said, was the subject of hundreds of articles and yet the judge in that case did not change the venue for the trial.

Batten found there was no scientific evidence to support the defense's argument, noting that no sampling was done of the county's population to determine if any taint existed.

To e-mail Trudi Gilfillian at The Press: