Jury To Start Deliberating Dibartolo’s Fate Today But First, Both Sides To Give Closing Arguments In Murder Case

After five weeks of testimony and more than 115 witnesses, jurors will start deliberating the fate of former sheriff’s deputy Tom DiBartolo sometime today.

Prosecutors have said they’ll take more than two hours for their closing arguments in one of Spokane County’s most closely watched murder trials.

DiBartolo is accused of killing his wife, Patty, on Nov. 2, 1996, while the couple was concluding a late-night walk in Lincoln Park on Spokane’s South Hill.

Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney Jim Sweetser said he’ll give a detailed summary of the key evidence pointing to DiBartolo’s guilt.

But DiBartolo’s defense attorney, Maryann Moreno, will tell the eight-man, four-woman jury that police needed a suspect in the murder and focused exclusively on DiBartolo while failing to follow other leads.

She said it’s doubtful her closing remarks will take as long as the three hours Superior Court Judge Neal Q. Rielly has allowed each side for final arguments.

The jury - whose identities have been protected throughout the trial - will not be sequestered during deliberations, Rielly ruled Tuesday.

Prosecutors had wanted to take the jurors as a group to a Spokane hotel at the end of each night if they had failed to reach a verdict.

Sweetser said the high level of publicity on the trial requires giving jurors the added protection of being sequestered.

But Rielly said he thinks the trial has been stressful enough on the jury.

“To increase that pressure and stress by taking them out of their (daily) routine would be more unnecessary,” he added.

Prosecution witnesses have painted a portrait of the 43-year-old DiBartolo as an egocentric womanizer who killed his wife after deciding it would be too costly to divorce her.

They tried to show that DiBartolo took his wife to Lincoln Park in the months prior to the shooting, helping establish his later story of being attacked there by two men.

DiBartolo testified he was with his wife near their minivan when two men came out of the dark, demanding money. One grabbed a handgun from inside the van and fired twice. One shot killed his wife; the second wounded him superficially, DiBartolo said.

Moreno called several witnesses, including DiBartolo’s sister and brother, to suggest he had no reason to end his marriage by killing the mother of his five children.

, DataTimes