The Macomb Daily is reporting that following closing arguments, the jury in the murder trial of comic book retailer Michael George deliberated for about two hours on Friday before recessing until Monday morning.  The trial, which began on February 26th resulted from a "cold case" investigation into the execution-style murder of George's wife Barbara back on July 13th of 1990.

According to the prosecutor George, who collected a $130,000 insurance policy on his wife and moved in with his mistress within two months of the murder, was motivated by "greed, sex, and power."  The prosecution's case, which was highly circumstantial (see "Prosecution Expected to Rest Today"), depends to a large extent on one witness, Mike Renaud, who contradicted George's alibi by testifying that he called the store and talked to George about the price of a comic at a time that George said he was miles away at his mother's house.  The prosecution stressed George's infidelities as well as the $130,000 insurance policy he collected upon the death of his wife, but had little in the way of physical evidence tying the retailer to the crime.

The defense admitted George's infidelities, but stressed that there is a major difference between adultery and murder and that only a very small percentage of those who commit the former are guilty of the latter.  The defense even came up with a version of The Fugitive's "one-armed man" -- a mysterious man in a Greek fisherman's hat seen lurking outside the store near the time of the killing who defense attorneys fingered as the "real murderer."