ROAD TOWN, British Virgin Islands — Prosecutors say New York businessman William Labrador confessed to deliberately putting his foot on the back of Lois McMillen's neck as she lay on a rocky Tortola shoreline last year, drowning the 34-year-old artist in the lapping waves of the Caribbean.

Labrador's lawyer says the confession is a fiction created by another American visitor to the island, a prison informant named Jeffrey Plante. Plante, who has a history of bad checks and ex-wives and faces extradition, made similar claims about a murder confession when jailed on an another island paradise — Hawaii — six years ago.

So who is telling the truth? Labrador or Plante?

In lengthy closing arguments Tuesday, defense lawyer Richard Hector and prosecutor Theodore Guerra both agreed that the central question for the nine-member jury will be to decide whether Plante lied when he testified that Labrador, his cellmate, confessed to the murder to purge himself of the sin during Holy Week last year.

Any agreement between the two lawyers, both of whom hold the distinguished title Queen's Counsel, stopped there. During their summations — 75 minutes for Hector, twice that for Guerra — both lawyers tried to put their own spin on the words of 23 witnesses in what has become the longest trial in the history of this chain of more than 60 small islands.

The jury is expected to begin deliberating Thursday after Justice Kenneth Benjamin sums up the trial and offers instructions on how to apply the law in this British territory to the case. There will be no court session Wednesday.

Defense: Key witness is "murderer of the truth"

Hector delivered his argument first on Tuesday. After thanking the seven women and two men on the jury for their patience and attention during the trial, the lawyer attempted to systematically break down the prosecution's case. He pointed out the lack of evidence that the police had when they arrested the four men — Labrador, 37, and friends Michael Spicer, also 37; Alexander Benedetto, 35; and Evan George, 23 — within hours of McMillen's fully clothed body being discovered on the shoreline on Jan. 15, 2000.

Tortola police "arrested these men because of a blood stain that did not exist, a cut that was not a cut and also wet and sandy shoes," Hector told the jury.

Chief Inspector Jacob George had testified for the prosecution that he saw a blood stain on the shirt Spicer had been wearing the night of the murder. Hector reminded the jury that neither George (now the island's acting superintendent of police) nor forensic experts could find any evidence of the stain later.

George also testified that he suspected Labrador was involved in the killing because of a cut he saw on the bridge of Labrador's nose. Hector pointed out in his argument that no cut was visible in a police photograph of Labrador taken later that day and Labrador's own blown-up photos from the day before showed a sun blister on his nose that was already healing.

Then there was the issue of wet, sandy shoes. George testified that Labrador gave him the shoes that he claimed to be wearing both during a hike on the morning of Jan. 14, 2000, and when he went out briefly that night before changing his mind and going home to bed. There was no evidence that sand from Labrador's shoes matched sand collected from the crime scene.

In fact, Hector argued, the police had no evidence against his client until almost four months after the murder, when, on May 11, 2000, Plante told police that Labrador had confessed to him in their cell several weeks earlier.

Hector then did his best to remind the jury what kind of man the prosecution's key witness is. He detailed Plante's past and present: his long conviction record; his 45-year sentence in 1987 for theft; his pending charges here for allegedly passing 32 bad checks; his 10 marriages, six of them purely for business purposes; his fear of being extradited to Texas to serve 33 years remaining on the 1987 sentence.

In view of Plante's record, the prosecution must have really needed his testimony to put him before the jury, Hector argued.

"He comes to you now as spoiled goods, but the prosecution was desperate," Hector said. "They had nothing more. This case should be built on solid rock, not shifting sand."

Later he added, "Can you believe his word to convict someone of murder without any other evidence to support it, and, in fact, a whole lot of evidence that is inconsistent with the version he gave you?" Hector asked. "[Plante] is not a murderer. He is a murderer of the truth."

As Hector neared the end of his closing, Labrador, seated alone in the defendant's box, folded his arms and looked directly at the jury. Josephine McMillen, dressed entirely in black as she has been throughout the trial, sat quietly next to her husband in the first row while Hector asked the jury to acquit the man whom she believes killed her daughter.

"I ask you to agree with me," Hector urged. "Let him go. Let him return to the bosom of his family because he didn't do anything. He had done nothing but come here for vacation and he was arrested by the police ... It is now the 480th day."

In his closing Hector also asked the jury not to place any significance on the fact that Labrador is still charged with murder while his three friends and co-defendants were set free by Benjamin on May 3. The judge ruled that the prosecution presented insufficient evidence to gain convictions.

The lawyer, a former prosecutor from Bermuda, also asked them not to believe testimony that his client tried to get the U.S. media to write negative stories about the British Virgin Islands, its government and criminal justice system.

Prosecution: We proved it

Prosecutor Guerra, based in Trinidad, spent much of his closing argument trying to persuade the jury that that is exactly what Labrador and his former co-defendants had done.

"We do not know about trial by the press. We do not know about trial by television," Guerra said, reminding the jury that British subjects respect their justice system, churches and government while suggesting that Americans do not. "We don't know about circuses such as O.J. Simpson where you can sit in your living room and see what is going on in the court."

Repeatedly contrasting American and West Indian values and customs, Guerra referred to America as a "large country" and asked jurors to rely on their "good, West Indian common sense" to reject Labrador's defense strategy of using the media to demean the foreign government that accused him of killing McMillen.

"We will not tolerate any disrespect by anyone, no matter who they may be or where they may come from, to the laws and morals of our country," Guerra said.

At one point in his argument Guerra attacked the defendant's family. "Lying is a natural tendency of the Labradors," he said. Hector objected and the judge sustained his objection. Guerra then limited his remarks to the defendant.

"I'm going to show that William Labrador is a stranger to the truth," he said. "I am going to show you that you cannot have any regard to anything William Labrador says."

Between the testimony of police officers, a pathologist and Plante, the prosecution presented "not small" evidence of Labrador's guilt, Guerra continued.

"Out of the mouth of Labrador comes the support for what Jeffrey Plante said," Guerra insisted.

The prosecutor then focused on a series of statements Labrador made while on the witness stand last week. Guerra pointed out that, in his testimony, Labrador said he was not aware until Jan. 12, 2000, that his childhood friend, Alexander Benedetto, had had an intimate relationship with McMillen several years before. But in his police statement on Jan. 16, 2000, Labrador said that as far as knew none of the defendants had ever been intimate with the victim.

Labrador also told police that he was an investment banker, but on the stand he described himself as a financial management consultant dealing mostly with modeling agencies. On cross-examination last week, Labrador said he did not need a license to be an investment banker unless he was working in the "corporate world," which he was not.

Guerra pointed out that, after learning of the discovery of McMillen's body from police, Labrador testified that he told Spicer not to call McMillen's parents because it could be deemed as interfering with a criminal investigation. But, Guerra pointed out, no one had told Labrador how McMillen died or that there even was a criminal investigation.

"Immediately Labrador says to him, 'No. this is a criminal investigation.' ... The reason why Labrador was telling Spicer this was he knew more about the circumstances of how Miss McMillen died than he let on to the police and he let on to you," Guerra told the jury.

A witness's testimony that Labrador was eager for him and his friends to leave Spicer's house on the night McMillen died because they were meeting someone on the other side of the island is proof that there was a planned "rendezvous" near the crime scene, Guerra said. Although Labrador said he had changed his mind, headed back home and was watching TV or sleeping about the time McMillen was killed, those statements are not supported, Guerra argued further.

"It is for you to add two and two together and deduce. It is significant, is it not, [that] William Labrador has not got one iota of support for ... his alibi?" Guerra said.

Guerra returned then to his theme about differences between Americans and West Indians. He pointed to the testimony of both Plante and Labrador that Labrador was trying to separate his defense from those of his three friends, including his longtime friend Benedetto. He was making a case that the defendant would do anything, including lie and abandon friends, to save himself.

"We in the Caribbean know what boyhood and girlhood friends mean to us," Guerra, seizing the homefield advantage, said. "Do you, especially where you are claiming you are arrested for nothing ..., isn't it the time you would lend your support for your boyhood friend?"

After spending the first part of his argument tearing down the defendant's credibility, Guerra then mounted a campaign to build up Plante's image with the jury. Guerra accused Plante's former parole officer from Texas, who was the only other defense witness other than Labrador, of being an agent of Labrador's defense team, a liar and a "slippery" witness. Tisha Neville testified Monday that she believes nothing Plante says and ordered him to report to her weekly because she caught him in numerous lies about employment, contracts and where he was living.

Neville also testified that a private investigator, who assisted Labrador's New York-based lawyer, sent her a portion of a transcript from a 1995 trial in Hawaii during which Plante testified.

The testimony in the Hawaii case was strikingly similar to Plante's testimony against Labrador. In Hawaii, Plante said a defendant awaiting trial for murder asked to borrow $10,000 from him and later admitted that he killed someone over "drugs and money." In Labrador's trial, Plante testified that Labrador asked to borrow $25,000 and later admitted that he killed McMillen during an argument "over money" and because she was "no good."

Guerra highlighted the fact that Neville was no longer Plante's direct parole supervisor when she obtained the uncertified copy of the transcript of the Hawaii testimony and forwarded a copy to Labrador's New York lawyer. Guerra told the jury to reject the transcript as possibly being fabricated by the private detective who sent it to Neville.

He called Neville a "biased witness" who demonstrated that "she's got too much interest in this matter." He said her motive for testifying against Plante was his request, which was denied, that Neville be removed as his parole officer.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, let's use our very good West Indian common sense," Guerra said, "and not let people who come from large countries try to deceive us. Is she not part of a plot to undermine Plante's evidence? ... They figure they can come from their big country and fool people here."

Guerra wound down his arguments by commending Plante for standing up to the "slings and arrows" thrown at him by the defense and insisting that Labrador, finding religion during Holy Week, gave a true confession to Plante to purge himself of the sin of murder.

"Members of the jury. The prosecution's case stands or falls with Plante. Plante's evidence finds support in the lies told by William Labrador," Guerra said. "Surely you are not going to judge William Labrador on the lies he told, but you will ask yourselves, if he is innocent, what is he lying for? Why is he lying?"

"It is your duty, your job, to decide whether Plante is telling the truth or not," Guerra went on. "Members of the jury, I think the Crown has done its duty. I submit to you that based on the evidence by Plante, supported by evidence out of the mouth of the accused and other witnesses ..., the Crown has proved the guilty of the accused to the hilt."