Testimony in the first-degree murder trial of Lawrence resident Martin K. Miller ended this afternoon with an exchange between Miller and a prosecutor who tried to depict him as a liar.

During cross-examination, assistant Dist. Atty. Brandon Jones pointed out that Martin K. Miller repeatedly lied to his wife, his children, his friends, and police.

“You want this jury to believe that what you’re saying is the truth?” Jones asked.

“Absolutely,” Miller answered.

Jurors are scheduled to hear closing arguments on Monday morning.

Miller is charged with strangling his wife, Kansas University librarian Mary E. Miller, last summer at their home at 2105 Carolina St.

He took the stand in his own defense Friday morning and testified that he was in the master bedroom of his home with his wife at the time his children overheard their mother making wheezing noises a fact he didn’t admit to police last summer despite at least four opportunities.

The reason Miller never told police he was in the bedroom, he told jurors, was that he was scared because he thought he had failed his wife and failed to recognize she was having medical problems. He said he heard her make an “outburst of sound” in the night, went to her side to comfort her, and went back to sleep after she said she was okay.

The next morning, he testified, he found her dead in their bed.

“I was afraid I had been negligent, I would be blamed for not calling (911) when I should have,” he said. “I just panicked. I just made a really stupid decision to pretend I wasn’t in the room.”

Miller’s testimony came after three days of evidence including descriptions of Miller’s pornography addiction and extramarital affair.

Miller, a carpenter and former Christian-school leader, maintained in four interviews with police last summer that he had been sleeping on a recliner in the living room the night Mary Miller died and hadn’t heard any noises. When his children told police they’d heard him in the room as their mother wheezed, he denied being there.

The version he gave today was that he got up about midnight he initially told police it was 2 a.m. took some medicine for a migraine, then fell asleep on a recliner. He testified he eventually woke up because he had to urinate, went to the bathroom adjacent to the master bedroom, sat down on the toilet, fell asleep, and woke up when Mary Miller began making noises.

His defense attorney, Mark Manna, asked why jurors should believe his version of events now.

“At this point, they’ve dug up all the embarrassing things they can find on me and put it on public display,” Miller answered. “I don’t have anything else to hide.”