Jury in Christopher Lee murder trial out for deliberations

The jury in a murder trial surrounding the 2014 strangulation of a Twentynine Palms military wife, whose body was dumped into a mineshaft in the high desert, was let out for deliberations around 3:20 p.m. Wednesday.

Last week the defendant, 27-year-old Christopher Brandon Lee, made a shocking courtroom confession claiming he was fueled by rage after the victim, 19-year-old Erin Corwin , admitted to molesting his young daughter. In closing arguments, the prosecution called it “a ruse.”

Both sides made their closing arguments to the jury in about an hour.

The prosecution pushed for a conviction of first-degree murder with special circumstances of lying in wait. Defense attorney David Kaloyanides tried to plant doubt in the jurors minds by claiming the killing was made in a fit of passion and was not premeditated. He argued for a lesser conviction of manslaughter, as i t is no longer a question of who did it.

“Yeah, he had killed his lover,” Kaloyanides said. ” But was it murder? Is that what he was c onscionable of? Or was it the killing?”

The defense counsel asked the jury of 10 women and two men to consider the evidence closely.

“All of this speculation has to go out. We have to rely on evidence,” he added.

Earlier in the day, Deputy District Attorney Sean Daugherty argued that former Marine, Christopher Lee, lured his lover, Erin Corwin, to a desolate spot in the desert and waited for just the right moment to strike; planning to kill her, throw her body down the mine shaft and then collapse it on top of her. The latter of which was foiled after Lee forgot to light a torch before he threw the fuel down the well, a fact Lee admitted in court Tuesday.

“We know that when he left that morning he had everything you needed to collapse a mineshaft,” Daugherty told the gallery.

Daugherty called Lee’s confession a “con,” and said it was an effort to be convicted of a lesser charge.

“This is all about convincing you ‘I did this for a reason,” Daugherty added.

Text messages between Corwin and a friend, show she thought Lee was taking her somewhere special and may even propose. Lee and Corwin were both married to other people, but were having an affair when they discovered she was pregnant. Court evidence pointed to the fact that Lee was aware Corwin thought he was the father.

Lee could face the death penalty if convicted of special circumstances first-degree murder. The jury had not reach a verdict as of Wednesday night.