GREAT BEND, Kan. (AP) Jurors have begun deliberations in the capital murder trial of a central Kansas man accused of killing a 14-year-old cheerleader whose badly burned body was found at the asphalt plant where the suspect worked.
Prosecutors recounted in Friday’s closing arguments the hundreds of text messages that Adam Longoria of Great Bend exchanged with Alicia DeBolt before her August 2010 death. Prosecutor Kevin O’Connor also noted that Longoria’s semen was found mixed with DeBolt’s DNA in his vehicle.
The defense conceded that the relationship between the then-36-year-old man and the teenage girl was inappropriate but insisted he didn’t kill her.
To convict Longoria of capital murder, jurors must determine not only that he killed Alicia but that he committed criminal sodomy or attempted rape during the slaying.
