NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A few hours after Jeffrey Freeman was beaten and strangled to death in his bathroom, his wife Martha called Freeman's mother to say he was too ill to make his weekly phone call to his parents.

Two days later, Hazel Freeman learned the real reason her son was unable to call.

Prosecutors contend that Martha Freeman and her lover, Rafael Rocha-Perez, conspired to kill her husband on April 10, 2005. They both face life in prison if convicted.

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Testifying in a videotaped deposition that was played for jurors Wednesday, 81-year-old Hazel Freeman said that just about every Sunday night at midnight, her youngest son called her and her husband in Bristol, Tenn.

Hazel Freeman said she was surprised when, on April 10, she received a call from her daughter-in-law, with whom she almost never spoke.

"She told me that Jeff wouldn't be able to call me. He wasn't feeling well, and he'd gone to bed," Hazel Freeman said in the deposition, which was recorded on Sept. 1. "She seemed normal or happy, or whatever it was."

The next day, Hazel Freeman said she called the office of the background-check business that Jeffrey and Martha Freeman operated, to discover he was out sick.

"Did you ever speak to your son again?" Davidson County prosecutor Katy Miller asked.

"No," she said.

With little forensic evidence linking the defendants to the crime, prosecutors have sought to build a strong circumstantial case based largely on Martha Freeman's seemingly odd behavior after the crime.

In addition to the phone call, jurors learned Wednesday that Martha Freeman also picked up an antidepressant prescription from Walgreen's shortly after her husband was killed.

Walgreen's pharmacist Lori Estridge testified that at 10 p.m. on April 10, the defendant purchased 20 doses of hydrocodone as part of her treatment for depression and a bipolar disorder.

But lawyers for Martha Freeman claim her mental condition is to blame for her behavior after the murder.

During cross-examination, defense lawyer Rich McGee listed prescriptions for 1,242 doses, by his own count, of antidepressants, sedatives, cholesterol and blood-pressure medications that Martha Freeman purchased from Walgreen's, from January 2005 up to the night of the murder.

If anything, Freeman's lawyers claim, her decision to leave the body in the home and to contact police the next day prove her lack of involvement in the murder.

When police responded to the couple's upscale south Nashville home on April 11, they discovered the body of the 44-year-old victim wrapped in a sleeping bag and a plastic garbage bag tied around his head.

A medical examiner testified Wednesday that Jeffrey Freeman was bound at the wrists and beaten about the head before he being strangled to death.

Dr. Tom Deering admitted, however, that he could not say when the victim died or exactly what had caused the multiple bruises and abrasions to his head.

Deering testified he was also unsure of the source of ligature marks found around Freeman's neck, or whether they indicated that Freeman had been strangled by hand or with an implement.

Even so, the doctor was certain that Freeman suffered for several minutes before he died.

"It takes several minutes to strangle someone," Deering testified while a visibly disturbed Martha Freeman struggled for composure. "It takes a little while of asphyxiating someone to kill them."

Though prosecutors have not directly stated their theory of how Jeffrey Freeman was killed, in her opening statement Tuesday, prosecutor Miller told jurors that evidence would show Martha Freeman secretly brought Rocha-Perez into the home, and that they both conspired to kill her husband.

The panel of eight women and four men viewed photographs Wednesday of the Freeman home that seemed to support the theory that Rocha-Perez secretly inhabited a closet in a spare bedroom.

A purple GameBoy, a Spanish-English electronic translator, and copies of Playboy, Penthouse and Maxim magazines were among the items that Det. George Bouton photographed during a search of the home that Martha Freeman voluntarily consented to.

The jury also viewed several pictures of the rest of the otherwise undisturbed home, including exterior shots, in an effort to prove that there were no signs of forced entry.

"No one tried to break into the house," Bouton testified.

The state is expected to rest its case Thursday.