Deliberations will enter third day in Durrell Jones murder trial

Jurors in the Durrell Jones murder trial deliberated all day Monday before leaving and electing to return at 9 a.m. today to continue trying to decide the case.

Jones, 26, of Kansas City, Kan., faces a first-degree murder charge and is accused of shooting and killing Anthony “Clacc” Vital, 28, a Lawrence hip-hop artist, on Oct. 14, 2006.

Jurors Monday morning asked Chief District Judge Robert Fairchild if they could have a copy of the PowerPoint presentation prosecutor Amy McGowan used as an aid during her closing argument Friday.

The jury deliberated for about 90 minutes Friday after closing arguments, left for the weekend and had returned at 9 a.m. Monday.

Fairchild said he could not provide the PowerPoint because it was not admitted as evidence in the case.

Fairchild also declined to provide a transcript or let jurors rehear a reading of the closing arguments because he said the arguments were not evidence themselves but based on what was presented and admitted at the trial.

Prosecutors during the trial last week accused Jones of shooting Vital three times on a rural driveway west of Lawrence to collect on a drug debt. The state’s main witness was co-defendant Major C. Edwards Jr., 31, of Lawrence, who pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter last year in the case.

Edwards testified that he led Jones to Vital to collect Jones’ money for a bottle of PCP, and Edwards said as they were driving north on Iowa Street and west on Sixth Street Jones pulled a gun on them. He alleged Jones directed him to keep driving west of Lawrence and then pull over about two miles west of town where Jones shot Vital and left him there.

Prosecutors said other evidence in the case corroborates Edwards’ story and that DNA evidence connected to Edwards and Jones was found on items near Vital’s body.

But defense attorney John Kerns has argued Edwards, who will receive four years off his prison sentence, is trying to pin the crime on Jones.