LAS VEGAS (AP) — A jury began deliberations Monday in the trial of a former Democratic Las Vegas-area politician accused of killing an investigative journalist. Prosecutors say the official accused him of writing stories that destroyed his career, ruined his reputation and threatened his marriage.

“And he did it because Jeff wasn’t done writing,” prosecutor Christopher Hamner said during closing arguments by defendant Robert Telles and reporter Jeff German. “It’s like connecting the dots.”

The jurors deliberated for about four hours before adjourning for the evening and returning Tuesday.

Earlier, they sent the judge a note asking for more stationery and a court technician to show them how to zoom in on laptop video while they were in the jury room. They stayed an hour past the usual 5 p.m. closing time.

Telles lost his Democratic primary for a second term after German’s first stories for the Las Vegas Review-Journal in May 2022 about Telles’ conduct as head of an obscure county office that handles unclaimed estates. The reports described turmoil and harassment in Telles’ workplace and a romantic relationship between Telles and a female employee.

The day before German was stabbed to death, Telles learned that Clark County officials were about to provide German with emails and text messages that Telles and the woman had shared, in response to the reporter’s public records request. There was another story brewing, Hamner said.

“The murder occurred the next day … approximately 15 hours later,” prosecutor Pamela Weckerly said as she presented the jury with a timeline and videos of Telles’ maroon SUV leaving the neighborhood near his home just after 9 a.m. on Sept. 2, 2022, and driving through streets near German’s home a short time later.

The driver of the SUV was wearing a bright orange outfit that resembled the outfit of a person captured on camera walking toward German’s home and sneaking into a side yard.

“That person is still laying there, lurking,” Weckerly said, as he replayed video from a neighbor’s home that shows German’s garage door opening and German walking into the side yard, where he was attacked just after 11:15 a.m.

A little over two minutes pass, then the figure in orange appears and walks across a sidewalk. German no longer appears.

The prosecutor said the killing was first-degree murder because the evidence showed it was intentional, deliberate and premeditated. Although prosecutors did not have the murder weapon, she said the evidence was clear that one was used.

Weckerly also focused on a text message from Telles’ wife, to which he did not respond, asking, “Where are you?” approximately 45 minutes before evidence showed German had been killed.

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Hamner and Weckerly told the jury they believe Telles failed to respond because he left his cell phone — and the means to track him — at home.

German’s body was found the next day and Telles’ DNA was found under German’s fingernails. When asked about the DNA, Telles said he believed it was planted.

No blood or DNA from German was found on Telles, in his vehicle or in his home, defense attorney Robert Draskovich said Monday. He urged the jury to ask itself: “What’s missing?”

Draskovich first introduced a new clip from a video that focused on a view of a maroon SUV like Telles, seen through the passenger window with the shadowed silhouette of a driver behind the wheel. The image was prosecution evidence that had not been shown to the jury.

That driver was not Telles, said the lawyer, who noted that his client is completely bald.

The jury heard again about pieces of a wide straw hat and a gray sneaker found in Telles’ home. These pieces resembled the pieces worn by the person in the orange shirt, but which were never recovered.

“You are the only ones who judge the facts,” Draskovich told the jury during his oral argument before the panel was whittled down to 12, broke for lunch and began deliberating just before 2 p.m. on whether they all believe Telles killed German.

“I’m not crazy. I’m not trying to avoid responsibility,” Telles told the jury Friday to end his second and final round of self-directed testimony in his defense. “I did not kill Mr. German and I’m innocent.”

The testimony came on what would have been German’s 71st birthday. Originally from Milwaukee, he was a respected journalist who covered crime, courts and corruption in Las Vegas for 44 years.

Telles, 47, is an attorney who practiced civil law before being elected in 2018. His law license was revoked following his arrest, days after German was killed. He faces life in prison if convicted.

The jurors were attentive throughout the trial, watching Telles from the witness stand and the defense table. He sat Monday with his brow furrowed and his eyes slightly squinted at the computer screen before him as Weckerly and Hamner spoke.

In his testimony, he named office colleagues, realtors, business owners and police officers he accused of “bringing him in” to kill German. He said it was retaliation for his crusade to root out corruption he saw in his office of about eight employees who handled estate planning cases.

“I’m not the type of person who would stab someone. I did not kill Mr. German,” Telles said Thursday. “And that’s my testimony.”

Where Telles was when German was killed remained a major focus of the trial. Weckerly and Hamner presented 28 witnesses and hundreds of pages of photographs, police reports and videos.

Telles and five other individuals testified for the defense during the trial. No family member of Telles was called to testify or identified in the gallery during the trial.

About a dozen German family members sat silently in the hushed courtroom Monday. They declined as a group to comment to The Associated Press.

The killing drew widespread attention. German was the only journalist murdered in the U.S. in 2022, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. The nonprofit has tracked 17 media workers killed in the U.S. since 1992.

This story originally appeared on Fortune.com