VISTA (CBS 8 / CNS) - Jury deliberations will continue for a third day Tuesday in the trial of three people accused of torturing and murdering a 22-year-old military wife at a home in Fallbrook, where she was caught up in a sadomasochistic sex ring.
The jury of nine women and three men left the court Monday without reaching a verdict.
The murder trial began more than a month ago.
Louis Ray Perez, 49, Dorothy Maraglino, 40, and Jessica Lynn Lopez, 28, are charged in the April 13, 2012, death of Brittany Killgore. The defendants - charged with murder, torture, conspiracy and other counts - face life in prison if convicted.
Investigators said Killgore had just filed for divorce from her Marine husband, who was deployed to Afghanistan, when she was lured to a meeting with Perez. Her body was found four days later near Lake Skinner in Riverside County.
According to Deputy District Attorney Patrick Espinoza, a stun baton found in the back of Perez's SUV had the victim's DNA on it. A plastic sheet in the back of Perez's car also had the victim's blood on it, Espinoza told the jury.
Lopez's attorney, Sloan Ostbye, told jurors that her client was a victim to a "slave" contract she entered into with Maraglino in the bondage and sadomasochistic world. Ostbye presented Lopez as a patsy, an abused servant forced to take the blame for a crime she did not commit.
"She was known as 'money bitch,"' Ostbye said. "Her role was not unsimilar (sic) to that of a dog."
Perez's attorney, Brad Patton, told the jury that Lopez committed the murder.
In 2011, he said, Lopez was heartbroken when another woman came between Perez and Maraglino, who were in an open relationship at the time. Maraglino's attorney, Jane Kinsey, told the jury that her client had abandoned her BD/SM lifestyle while she was pregnant with Perez's child and that her only mistake was to participate in the cover-up.
"The only crime she is guilty of is lying for someone she loves," Kinsey said.