SAN DIEGO (CNS) - Jurors will hold a fourth day of deliberations Wednesday in the trial of a woman charged with murdering her Navy doctor-husband while he slept after learning he was having an affair.
Jennifer Trayers, 43, fatally stabbed Dr. Frederick Trayers on the morning of Dec. 4, 2010. Prosecutors said Trayers is guilty of first-degree murder, but a defense attorney urged jurors to convict her of voluntary manslaughter.
Jurors will resume deliberations this morning after taking Tuesday off.
In her closing argument, prosecutor Fiona Khalil said the defendant lied and presented a "false concoction" when she told the jury how she killed her 41-year-old spouse.
Trayers testified that she was frustrated by her husband's refusal to speak to her about his affair when she went into the bedroom with a butcher knife and asked him how to kill herself. She said she and her husband struggled over a sharper military knife that he pulled out, and she stabbed him in the back of the neck.
The defendent said her husband stood up and pulled the covers off the bed, then she blacked out and couldn't remember stabbing him 10 more times, including two lethal stab wounds to the chest.
Khalil said the evidence didn't support the defendant's story and that, in fact, she attacked her husband in bed after he had taken sleep medication.
Defense attorney Kerry Armstrong said his client attacked her husband while in a "total uncontrollable rage" three months after finding out he was having an affair with a younger woman he met on a hospital ship.
Trayers found herself on an "emotional roller coaster" because her husband told her he would never leave her but at the same time was telling his mistress that he loved her and wanted a divorce.
The defendant installed spyware on her husband's computer and intercepted hundreds of emails between him and his girlfriend discussing how they wanted to get married and have children, Armstrong said.
Trayers faces 26 years to life in prison if convicted of first-degree murder.
