WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Putting murder defendants on the stand is always a gamble. In the case of Nathaniel Brazill, it may turn out to be a losing one.

Despite defense lawyer Robert Udell's attempts to evoke the teen's confusion in the moments before he pulled the trigger that killed his seventh-grade English teacher, the 14-year-old testified Tuesday in a voice as plain and monotone as the all-black clothes that he wore.

"I'm holding the gun with two hands to avoid dropping the gun," said Brazill, who testified for more than three hours. "My eyes were blurred. They began to get blurry."

Brazill was just 13 when he shot and killed Barry Grunow outside the teacher's classroom on May 26, 2000. Brazill, who faces life in prison without the possibility of parole, says he did not mean to shoot Grunow that day.

On Wednesday morning, the teenager again struggled on the stand under a tough cross-examination by prosecutor Marc Shiner, whose case hinges on proving that Brazill did intend to use the weapon.

"I did not try to pull the trigger, sir," Brazill told the prosecutor. "It was an accident. Mr. Grunow was one of my friends."

Brazill became teary-eyed briefly — his first expression of emotion on the stand — when asked to describe what happened after his teacher fell to the ground. He wiped the tears with a tissue and continued testifying.

Just before he took the stand Tuesday, the boy's mother, Polly Powell, asked the defense to make one more attempt to reach a plea agreement with the prosecution.

"They asked me to explore all the options," Udell said. "We were told 'There are no options.'"

Brazill turned down several plea deals from the prosecution in the months leading up to his trial, including a final offer of 25 years in prison.

"You understand that, while you're just 14 years old, this decision you've made, you may have to live with for the rest of your life?" Wennet asked Brazill at the beginning of the trial.

"Yes, sir," he replied.

Udell tried repeatedly to draw more emotion out of his client while he was on the stand under direct examination. At times, it seemed he was putting words into Brazill’s mouth in order to give the jury a more vivid portrait of the shooting than the boy’s terse answers provided.

"You're sitting there thinking about what's going on and that makes you sad?" the lawyer asked.

"Yes," Brazill answered.

"You're thinking that what you're doing is ridiculous?"

"Yes."

You're mad at yourself?"

"Yes."

"And then you hear an explosion?"

"Yes."

The 12 members of the jury listened attentively, scribbling notes almost as quickly as the many reporters who filled the courtroom after Udell made the surprising announcement that his client would be the first witness in the defense's case.

Udell previously had told the media that Brazill would be his last witness, though he admitted after court that those statements were ruses, saying "all along, from day one" he planned to call his client first.

The boy shot and killed Grunow outside a classroom doorway in Lake Worth Middle School on the last day before summer vacation. He was charged as an adult with first-degree murder.

Brazill did well in school and was liked by other students and teachers. By putting him on the stand, the defense may have been attempting to humanize Brazill — showing the jury the boy that friends and family remember as gentle, funny and kind.

But Brazill rarely let these characteristics emerge from behind a stoic exterior. Even when talking about Grunow, one of his favorite teachers, the boy betrayed little emotion. "He was a nice guy, a good teacher. He made his class fun," recalled Brazill in a matter-of-fact tone.

The defense maintains that Brazill, then 13, was trying to scare his teacher into letting him talk to two friends, one of whom he had a crush on, when the gun went off accidentally.

"I thought about it this way. If you have a million dollars and I point a gun at you and told you to give me the million dollars then you'd do it," Brazill testified. "I figured he'd let me talk to them."

Taking the stand at 2:35 p.m. ET, Brazill spent the rest of the afternoon describing in minute detail how he acquired a gun a week before the end of school and how he came to kill Grunow on the last day of classes.

"I think 'Oh, wow. A gun," said the boy, recalling his surprise when finding the firearm in a close family friend's bedroom drawer. "I remembered that I was going up to South Carolina with my uncle [that summer]. I was gonna get him to teach me how to fire a handgun."

Brazill claimed that he kept the gun's safety on at all times, even when he took it to school on May 26. The boy had been sent home earlier that day for throwing a water balloon, a punishment that he thought would amount to a 10-day suspension.

He left school with another classmate, Michelle Cordovaz, who testified on Friday that Brazill talked about returning to school with a gun and killing Kevin Hinds, the guidance counselor who had caught him. But on the stand, Brazill said he did not remember any conversation with Cordovaz.

Brazill claimed he hitched a ride home with a pizza delivery man and went searching for a family member to return to school with him. "I was gonna ask [my grandmother] if she could go back to school and talk to Mr. Hinds," Brazill asserted.

But seeing that his grandmother's car was being fixed by some neighborhood men, Brazill decided to ask his aunt instead. He walked to her workplace, he said, but left after noticing that her car was not in the lot. After discovering that she was not at home either, he wrote her a note and went home, the boy testified.

Another prosecution witness, neighborhood teenager Brendan "Big B" Spann, testified last week that Brazill asked him for at about this point in the day. The defendant said he did not remember talking to Spann and denied inquiring about the weapon.

"I had a gun at home so what would be the use?" Brazill commented.

Instead, he said, he went home and collected his own gun before returning to school on his bicycle. This testimony prompted what Udell called "the 10 million dollar question."

"Why did you take the gun?" the lawyer asked.

"I was just carrying it. I didn't have any plans to use it," Brazill replied.

The prosecution had a victory midday Tuesday before Brazill took the stand when Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge Richard Wennet denied motions from Udell to dismiss the charges against Brazill.

One of the charges the defense wanted dismissed was felony murder, which applies to killings that occur during the commission of other felonies — in Brazill’s case, burglary. Although Udell argued that under Florida law one cannot commit burglary by entering a building open to the public, Wennet ruled that the school, while a public facility, was not technically open, since visitors needed permission to enter.

The judge also denied motions to dismiss first-degree murder and aggravated assault charges, saying that the prosecution had presented enough evidence to go forward with the trial.

The defense is expected to call several more witnesses, possibly including a psychologist who has examined Brazill, and then rest its case either late Wednesday or early Thursday.

The trial is being aired live on Court TV.