LAS VEGAS — Is Kirstin Lobato's confession to mutilating a man enough to convict her of his murder, or does a lack of physical evidence win her an acquittal?

After deliberating five hours until midnight Thursday a jury is expected to continue deliberating Friday morning in Lobato's first-degree murder trial. If convicted, she faces life in prison.

Prosecutors allege that Lobato, then 18,  was at the end of a three-day methamphetamine binge on July 8, 2001, in Las Vegas when she "hooked up" with the homeless Duran Bailey to trade sex for drugs.

During her closing argument, Deputy District Attorney Sandra DiGiacomo said that attempted trade proved fatal for Bailey.

"Somehow the defendant hooked up with Duran Bailey for drugs but he obviously wasn't going to want money in exchange for it, he was going to want sex in exchange for drugs," DiGiacomo said.

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"But the defendant is not going to have anything to do with some smelly, old guy. He goes back there, drops his pants and she probably acted like she was going to go down and give him fellatio, boom, first stab wound was to the scrotum."

Lobato stabbed Bailey several times with her butterfly knife before grabbing an aluminum baseball bat from her car and beating him, DiGiacomo said.

The prosecutor said that, once Lobato knew Bailey was dead, she further mutilated him by severing his penis and stabbing him in the anus.

Lobato confessed to her former high school teacher and to police that she mutilated a man, and jurors heard audiotapes of her police statement. But the defendant, now 23, says she wasn't confessing to Bailey's murder but instead to a an attack she fended off on Memorial Day weekend in 2001 in the parking lot of a Budget Suites motel.

The prosecutor argued Thursday that there was no evidence to support that claim.

"You have no security reports from the Budget Suites from May, June or July regarding any sort of attack by the office, no blood found on the ground, no penises severed, no penises slashed," DiGiacomo said.  "You have Duran Bailey who was found in July with his penis severed."

Special Public Defender David Schieck pointed out that no DNA or other physical evidence, including fingerprints, footprints, tire prints, and pubic hairs, linked Lobato to the scene of Bailey's murder. Also, several witnesses testified that Lobato was 160 miles north of Las Vegas in her native Panaca, Nev., at the time of Bailey's killing.

Schieck pointed to the testimony of neighbors, friends and family members who all said that Lobato was in Panaca from July 2 through about 1:00 a.m. on July 9.

According to the Clark County medical examiner, Bailey was murdered and mutilated between 9:50 a.m. and 3:50 p.m. on July 8, 2001.

"What the state has to do in a criminal case to convict someone is to prove the facts, to prove it happened," Schieck said.

Lobato was previously convicted of first-degree murder and sexual penetration of a corpse, but the conviction was overturned by the Nevada Supreme Court because of testimony the judge failed to admit.

Lobato's retrial is being covered live by Court TV Extra.