By ANDY GARDNER

CANTON -- After six days of testimony and closing arguments today, Judge Felix Catena adjourned court to decide the fate of Oral “Nick” Hillary.

Hillary is on trial for second-degree murder, accused of killing 12-year-old Garrett Phillips in Potsdam on Oct. 24, 2011.

“I anticipate Wednesday or Thursday of next week,” Catena said of when he believes he will reach a verdict.

On the second day of jury selection, Hillary decided to waive his right to a jury trial in favor of a bench trial where Catena was to act as judge and jury.

In a total of more than two hours of summation arguments, each side heavily hit on their version of what happened from around 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. the day Phillips died.

The defense has stated Hillary wasn’t at the 100 Market St. Apt. 4 murder scene, but instead was at home.

“No one … came into this courtroom and said ‘I saw Nick Hillary kill Garrett Phillips,’” defense attorney Earl Ward said in court Wednesday. “No one said ‘I saw Nick Hillary in or around 100 Market St. when Garrett Phillips was murdered.’”

There is no disputing Hillary was near Phillips minutes before the boy’s death.

He is on video in the Potsdam High School parking lot sitting in his car. The defense says Hillary, who at the time was the Clarkson men’s soccer coach, was scouting a varsity soccer game. Prosecutors contend he was stalking Phillips.

“The idea he’s in the car and he doesn’t get out, and we know it’s raining, they’re trying to suggest it’s sinister behavior, that it’s evidence of murder,” Ward said.

After Phillips rides by on his ripstick, which is similar to a skateboard, Hillary slowly pulls from his parking place and leaves the lot, making a left turn, which the prosecution claims is indicative that he is the killer.

“At 4:53 (p.m.) he (Hillary) follows him (Phillips) home and he wants you to believe … within nanoseconds of Garrett hitting Leroy Street, his reverse lights come on … he never went home, there’s no tape of him going home, he was strangling and suffocating Garrett,” Prosecutor William Fitzpatrick said in his closing argument. “He sits there and he’s hunting, and he’s looking, and he’s waiting … The man in that car is not scouting any game.”

Fitzpatrick is the Onondaga County District Attorney who assisted St. Lawrence County DA Mary Rain. He handled most of the arguments and questioning throughout the case.

The defense pointed to another figure in the case who was caught on camera within minutes of Phillips’s murder, who the prosecution has ruled out as a suspect.

“Twenty-nine seconds after John Jones pulled into his driveway, Garrett rode by on his ripstick,” Ward said. “It’s a coincidence with John Jones, but it’s not a coincidence with Nick Hillary.”

Both Jones, a St. Lawrence County Sheriff’s deputy, and Hillary are former paramours of Phillips’s mother, Tandy Cyrus Collins.

“There’s no fantastic coincidence about John Jones appearing on videotape with Garrett Phillips skateboarding by, he lives on that street,” Fitzpatrick said.

The defense presented Ian Fairlie, Hillary’s assistant soccer coach at the time, and Shanna-Kay Hillary, the defendant’s daughter, as alibi witnesses.

“She (Shanna-Kay Hillary) testified when she got home about 4:30 (p.m.), her father was there, and he left … She says she then took a shower … she got out around 5 o’clock. She said she had a conversation with her father and he left around 5:15,” Ward said. “She remained steadfast and firm that those were the times she remembered.”

Prosecutors implied that the times were drilled into her head shortly after the murder by her father and his first legal council, Mani Tafari.

“Shanna-Kay is the one who said Mr. Tafari directed me to those times … this robotic 4:30, 4:45, 5:15,” Fitzpatrick said. “Days after Garrett’s death, her father’s lawyer focuses her on 4:30 to 5:15. How did he know? The only person that knows for sure when Garrett died is the guy that killed him.”

Ward spoke of testimony from a prosecution witness, Caleb “Teddy” Rice, who said he saw Hillary turn right onto Grove Street from Leroy Street on the day of the murder.

“It corroborates what Shanna-Kay says,” Ward said. She testified on Tuesday that her father left home at 4:40 p.m. and returned 20 minutes later.

Fitzpatrick pointed to testimony from Shanna-Kay Hillary, who said it would be unusual for her father to turn left from Potsdam High School on his way home.

“Out of the mouths of babes, even Shanna-Kay says ‘turn left out of the parking lot to go home, it makes no sense, and he’s never done it with me,’” he said.

Fitzpatrick argued that Hillary went and parked his car on Garden Street and from there, he walked to kill Phillips.

Following closing arguments, Ward said there is surveillance video showing a car on Garden Street, to which Fitzpatrick may have been referring.

“That’s not Nick’s car,” Ward said, adding that the video was not of high enough quality as to discern the make and model.

Fairlie testified on Tuesday that he and Hillary had talked about Hillary’s plans to scout a soccer game on Oct. 24, 2011.

But Fitzpatrick says Fairlie testified previously before a grand jury and made sworn statements where he says Fairlie denied talking to Hillary about scouting the soccer game.

“He was consistent until this trial. Where do you buy hubris like that?” Fitzpatrick said. “Four times he says ‘I never talked to him and he never said he was going to scout a soccer game … You don’t get to pick and choose your lies to help your buddy out,” Fitzpatrick said.

Ward pointed to testimony from Potsdam Police Officer Mark Wentworth, who first responded to a call of a disturbance at Phillips’s apartment on Oct. 24, 2011.

“Mark Wentworth heard noise at 5:16, 5:24 and most importantly judge, before Rick Dumas got there … at 5:35,” Ward said.

Ward also focused on prosecution witness Andrew Carranza, who lived at 100 Market St. and was outside changing a tire when the murder happened. He testified that he heard a noise, looked up at Phillips’s window and saw someone looking down at him. The prosecution never asked him to describe who he saw.

“He sees someone looking out the window of the apartment where Garrett Phillips was killed and not one question was asked by the prosecution about what you saw,” Ward said. “Have them explain why they didn’t ask Andrew Carranza ‘what did the person look like who was in that window.’”

The prosecution tried to establish as a motive that Hillary killed Phillips as revenge because his mother broke up with him.

The defense countered with putting character witnesses on the stand to testify that Hillary is a peaceful person.

“The defendant has convicted himself. His lies, his lawsuit, his car, his hatred and insidiously enough, his daughter,” Fitzpatrick said toward the end of his statement, with his booming voice beginning to crack up with emotion. “He wanted to be with his friends, he wanted to watch TV … he wanted to be 12 years old, he didn’t want to be dictated to, and that cost him his life.”

Ward said there isn’t any evidence directly connecting Hillary to the scene, so therefore the judge has a legal obligation to find him not guilty.

“I know judge that you’ll get it right. I know judge, that after considering all the evidence in this case, you’ll find Mr. Hillary not guilty,” Ward said.