Deliberation begins in trial of Missouri teen

ST. JOSEPH, Mo. -- The jury began deliberations after two hours of closing arguments Tuesday in the trial of a teenager accused of killing a high school classmate.

Zacheriah Tripp, 16, is charged with kidnapping, forcible rape and murder in the death of Sarah McCoy.

McCoy, 15, a fellow student at East Buchanan High School, disappeared Dec. 3 after getting off the school bus outside her rural Easton home. Her body was found Dec. 5 buried in a creek bed near a cornfield.

Tripp has pleaded innocent. He did not testify in his own defense.

The defense rested Monday after introducing one witness, Dr. Corrie May, director of the regional autopsy and forensic service at the University of Kansas Medical Center.

May testified that drowning was the most likely cause of McCoy's death.

May also testified that she had never heard of a homicide by suffocation with a plastic bag.

"There are easier ways to kill people," she said.

A prosecution witness who was in jail with Tripp testified that Tripp laughed about putting a plastic bag over McCoy's head to suffocate her.