I don't know if anyone else is thinking of Jeffrey MacDonald's trial as we wait for the verdict. I can't help seeing similarities: brutal murder, no witnesses, a lot of nonsense from the defense to draw attention away from the physical evidence.
I've always thought that the closing argument in that case was a masterpiece of rhetoric. This excerpted quote, in particular, seems appropriate to remember in this case:
"I suggest to you, ladies and gentlemen, that if you prove to you that that was MacDonald's footprint in type A blood...then it doesn't make any difference if there were 5,000 hippies outside Castle Drive at 4:00 in the morning...it doesn't matter what was going on outside unless they can tie that in to the inside...I can only tell you from the physical evidence in this case that things do not lie, but I suggest that people can and do lie."
We all have our own theories that may or may not agree with the Prosecution's description of the sequence of events. Some may disagree that Travis was stabbed, then shot. Others might think that there was no consensual sex and that the whole scene was staged. Given the fact the some cleaning was attempted and that significant time elapsed between the murder and the discovery of the the body, it would be extremely surprising if JM and Dr. Horn got everything exactly right.
In a case like this, there will always be things that can't be explained. Why would Jodi wait so long to kill Travis? Why use a knife at all? Why leave the camera and the memory card behind? While we can speculate, and I'm sure the jury is puzzled by some of these decisions, the only real issue is premeditation. If Jodi planned the murder then there's no need to understand how or why she carried it out the way that she did. The evidence for premeditation is overwhelming and the only explanations are given by a defendant who is known to be dishonest. She wasn't just lying out of panic in the days following the murder. She lied over the course of years to anyone who would listen, and embellished her story with more details as time went by. She did it with the same earnest voice that she used when she told the jury that she only shot Travis in self-defense...because he was in a murderous rage...because she dropped a $200 camera...2 feet...on to a bathmat.
I don't know what process the jury has adopted, so I have no idea if they'll address premeditation first, last or somewhere in between. In the end, they'll get to the point where they realize that Jodi planned the trip and came prepared to kill Travis and the verdict will reflect that determination.
Let not your hearts be troubled.