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Sam Penrod ReportingThe fate of a Utah County man accused of killing a co-worker is now in the hands of a jury. Sergio Ramos Trujillo is awaiting the verdict.
The jury began deliberating about 2:30 this afternoon, after listening to the case for three days. The jurors will now have to decide if the killing was a murder or if it was manslaughter.
The case involves a shooting at a farmhouse last summer, where Joray Corona was found shot to death. Investigators immediately suspected Sergio Ramos-Trujillo. The two men had been involved in a dispute the day before and Ramos-Trujillo was nowhere to be found after the shooting.
It was later discovered the suspect had borrowed a gun and that gun proved to be the murder weapon. Defense attorneys argued to the jury that the defendant shot the victim out of fear for his safety and in self-defense. Prosecutors contend the shooting was premeditated.
Randy Kennard, Prosecutor: "Anytime you have a killing that's one day removed from an incident that involves a dispute, it tends, in our belief, to lessen the belief that it was based on self-defense."
The jury heard closing arguments this afternoon and they were given the option by the judge to find him guilty of murder or of the lesser crime of manslaughter. Or they can acquit him all together, although that seems unlikely, because Ramos-Trujillo confessed to police that he shot the victim.
The jury is expected to keep deliberating through the afternoon and will decide this evening if they are close to a verdict or if they will come back tomorrow.
