SEVIERVILLE, Tenn. — Nine men and three women began deliberations Monday evening in the second-degree murder trial of a former amusement park manager accused in the death of a park visitor.

The panel began deliberating after lawyers delivered closing arguments and Judge Richard Vance instructed them on the charges of second-degree murder for Charles Stan Martin, who faces 25 years in prison if convicted in June Alexander's death.

Outside the courtroom the victim's son, Cody Alexander, who was sitting next to his mother on the ride when she plummeted 60 feet to her death, expressed mixed emotions over the deliberations.

"If I were on the jury, I honestly can't say I would definitely be able to convict him," the 16-year-old said. "After hearing all the evidence, it's like looking at it in a whole new light, and there are a whole lot of unanswered questions."

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In his closing argument, defense lawyer Bryan Delius told jurors they were the "safety device" protecting his client from accusations that he disabled the security failsafe that should have protected Alexander.

Alexander fell to her death from the Hawk, a pendulum ride that swings 360 degrees, after her harness came loose in midair as her family watched on March 14, 2004.

Prosecutor Steve Hawkins

"All the power, the strength and the finances of the state can come to bear on this single individual," Delius said. "But where you all are, right in between, you are the greatest safety device to ever be designed by our forefathers.

Standing next to a picture of the defendant's family riding the Hawk, Delius asked the jury why his client would have allowed his own family to go on the ride if he had knowingly disabled the ride's safety device.

"Would he have put them on that ride? Absolutely not if he knew it would cause them harm," Delius said.

Sevier County District Attorneys reminded the jury that by the defendant's own admission, the only way the jumper wires got there was if he put them there or if someone from the ride's manufacturer, Zamperla, put them there.

"Mrs. Alexander put her faith in somebody she didn't know," assistant district attorney Steve Hawkins said. "It was misplaced and as result she died because she didn't know safety harness wouldn't work."

Defense attorney Bryan Delius

"But there's one person in this courtroom who did know — Stan Martin," he said.

Hawkins asked jurors to consider how someone with Martin's military experience in missile deployment and civilian experience working with nuclear fission could have neglected to keep maintenance logs for the Hawk or call the manufacturer for help after a similar incident in 2003.

He also questioned the defendant's testimony that he simply failed to take notice of the jumper wires all the times he was in the cabinet.

Martin's lawyers called two expert witnesses Monday afternoon who testified that their analyses of the Hawk's schematics revealed a design flaw that a mystery person corrected by placing the jumper cables in the electrical panel before the ride arrived at Rockin Raceway.

Repeating the phrase, money versus safety, Delius pointed out problems with the ride that several witnesses testified to in the five-day trial.

"Zamperla manufactured a ride that was junk," he said of the $475,000 prototype that was the only one of its kind at the time.

Delius pointed out that in a prosecution video showing the ride operating without the safety harnesses enabled and the jumper wires attached, the state's witnesses failed to show a test-run showing the ride operating without the cables.