AP Writer Stephen Manning reports via the Times-Picayune, Jury to begin deliberations on Army Ranger murder:

Prosecutors recreated the scene of the crime, bringing in the bloody section of carpet and the chair McQueen sat in when he died. They showed jurors a photo of McQueen’s body, sitting in front of a television. A beer bottle and the television remote are on the carpet near his right hand.

“This is a guy who is enjoying his evening,” Hill said. “This is not a person who is going to commit suicide.”

But Smith’s defense lawyer also used crime scene photos to prove his claim that McQueen killed himself. Those included some used by a forensic experts who said the nature of McQueen’s wound and blood evidence from the scene was proof that he killed himself.

Also, Meghan Tierney writes in the Gazette, Deliberations expected in Ranger’s murder trial:

The state alleged that Smith, who grew up in Derwood, tried to get away with murder while the defense contended that Smith, the only other person in the apartment at the time, was covering up his friend’s suicide because he feared he would get blamed for McQueen’s death.

For more on this story, see my previous posts.