LAWRENCE, Mass. (Court TV) — The fate of the transvestite dermatologist who claims he was insane when he killed his estranged wife now rests with a jury.

The panel of six women and six men began weighing evidence against Richard Sharpe, a millionaire physician who dabbled in cross-dressing, at 3:30 p.m. If they reject his insanity defense and convict him of first-degree murder, Sharpe faces life in prison without parole.

Sharpe, 47, admits shooting his wife of 26 years, Karen, in the foyer of their "dream home" July 14, 2000, but he claims a toxic combination of prescription drugs and alcohol, coupled with long-term mental illness brought on by an abusive childhood, rendered him unable to understand his actions. The prosecution, however, contends that the insanity defense is an "excuse" for a murder motivated by his wife's decision to leave the marriage with their $3 million nest egg.

Weiner

"He's fakin' it," prosecutor Robert Weiner bellowed at the jury Monday during a closing argument in which he suggested Sharpe planned a temporary insanity defense as part of a murder plot. Playing off a defense psychiatrist who said a "perfect storm" of problems made Sharpe insane at the time of the shooting, Weiner argued, "Maybe it was the perfect murder, the perfect crime. He set it up so that he seemed temporarily insane."

But defense lawyer Joseph Balliro Sr. told jurors that Sharpe was insane at the time of the crime and remained so even as he sat before the panel in a neat blue-striped shirt and red tie.

"He is about as crazy, as insane an individual as you're going to meet," Balliro said, pointing to his client who kept his eyes squeezed tightly shut for much of the argument. "The only difference between him and a homeless man on the street ... was his intelligence, the fact he was a doctor."

Balliro said Karen Sharpe, the defendant's high school sweetheart and the mother of their three children, kept him from falling apart, but when she left the marriage, he began to crumble mentally. On the night of the shooting, his problems were exacerbated when he mixed red wine with a half dozen pain killers and antidepressants, Balliro said. When Sharpe arrived on her doorstep with a loaded shotgun, he was in a dissociative state and could not tell right from wrong, the lawyer argued.

"In his fantasy, he was going home," Balliro said, echoing the phrase Sharpe used during his own trial testimony. "And that weapon, ladies and gentlemen, rather than to kill her, he intended to perhaps intimidate her. It would be the key to her talking to him again."

Balliro

He urged jurors to "fight against ... whatever prejudice or bias" they have, an apparent reference to Sharpe's penchant for dressing like a woman. Many potential jurors were excused because they said they had read news accounts of Sharpe's habit of dressing in wigs and stockings and disapproved. During the trial, Sharpe testified that cross-dressing relaxed him, and his psychiatric expert, Dr. Keith Ablow, said that, along with Sharpe's various plastic surgeries, his cross-dressing was proof the doctor suffered an identity disorder, one of several diagnosed by Ablow. The psychiatrist also said he suffered from major depression, borderline personality disorder and intermittent explosive disorder.

Prosecutor Weiner assaulted Ablow's conclusions, saying the expert "throws [diagnoses] up against the wall of the jury box and he's hoping one or two will stick."

He told jurors to "put the psychobabble aside and just look at the facts." Sharpe abused his wife throughout their marriage, sending her to the hospital on one occasion and stabbing her in the head with a fork on another, Weiner said. He pointed to testimony that Sharpe was furious with his wife for keeping nearly $3 million he had sheltered in her name when she moved out of their home.

"There are three million motives that Richard Sharpe had for killing Karen," he said. "Not how much he wanted her back. He wanted the money back."

Weiner reminded jurors that Sharpe tried to buy a gun three weeks before the murder and offered an acquaintance money to ransack his wife's hotel room. After the shooting, Weiner said, Sharpe demonstrated a guilty conscience, disposing of the weapon and fleeing to New Hampshire.

"He wanted to evade detection. He appreciated the criminality of his conduct," Weiner said.

Both he and Balliro focused on the remaining mystery in the case: the murder weapon. Sharpe maintains he stole the gun from acquaintance Alden Tarr the night of the shooting, suggesting, Balliro said, there was little preplanning. But Tarr testified that the weapon stolen did not match the caliber of the murder weapon. Prosecutor Weiner argued that the theft of the gun was part of a plan to make the crime look spontaneous when, in fact, Sharpe must have secreted a weapon away before July 14.

If the jury finds Sharpe criminally responsible for Karen Sharpe's death, they can convict him of first- or second-degree murder or manslaughter. Second-degree murder carries a life sentence with parole eligibility after 15 years. Manslaughter carries a maximum 20-year sentence.