NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — A defense attorney urged a jury to acquit a nurse of the grisly murder of her husband Monday, saying the prosecution failed to produce "a stitch of evidence" the defendant shot the victim and cut up his body with a saw in their apartment.

The lawyer for Melanie McGuire told the panel in his closing argument that the fact that police investigators using high-tech methods "that would make a 'CSI' junkie's head spin" did not find blood or DNA in five searches of the couple's town home is proof enough to acquit McGuire.

"That's reasonable doubt right there. You could end your evaluation of the case right there," attorney Joe Tacopina told jurors, who could begin deliberations Tuesday.

He said the prosecution's theory of the 2004 murder required McGuire to be both a criminal genius who had managed to clean away every piece of forensic evidence in the home and a "bumbling idiot" who bought a gun using her own name two days before her husband went missing.

"The state cannot have it both ways. They want you to believe she was a master criminal ... [and that] she was stupid enough to leave a trail of bread crumbs that a Boy Scout could follow," he said during his three-hour summation.

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A prosecutor's closing argument, originally set for later in the day, was postponed until Tuesday because of the severe storm that caused flooding throughout the region. State Superior Court Judge Frederick DeVesa delayed the start of court for an hour and a half to accommodate lawyers and jurors stuck in traffic. Court officials later decided to close the courthouse early and send the staff home. Two jurors who were very late to court, including one who reported water damage at her home, were dismissed from the panel.

Defense attorney Joe Tacopina said McGuire had no motive to kill her husband.

McGuire, 34, a fertility clinic nurse, faces charges of first-degree murder and desecration of human remains, among other counts. During seven weeks of testimony from 75 witnesses, jurors heard that McGuire, a mother of two, was carrying on an affair with her married boss at the clinic, Dr. Bradley Miller.

William McGuire, 39, a computer analyst, was last seen alive April 28, 2004, when the couple closed on their first home. His remains, stuffed in three suitcases, were pulled from the Chesapeake Bay the next month.

In his summation, Tacopina said McGuire had no motive to kill her husband of five years. He said that plans Miller and McGuire had to divorce their spouses and marry were long-term, not immediate, and noted that the victim had carried on his own extramarital dalliances.