SAN DIEGO — After listening to 13 days of testimony about arsenic, breast implants and the sexual proclivities of murder defendant Cynthia Sommer, jurors began deliberations Friday to determine whether the 33-year-old mother of four is guilty of poisoning her Marine husband to obtain more than $250,000 in veteran's benefits.

"He died because he was poisoned to death by his wife for the money," Deputy District Attorney Laura told jurors during closing arguments Thursday.

Gunn acknowledged that they did not have a perfect case and had uncovered no evidence linking Sommer to the arsenic that allegedly killed Sgt. Todd Sommer in 2002. Yet she urged the jury to consider Cynthia Sommer's financial motivation and promiscuous behavior to find her guilty.

"This is not somebody who's grieving," Gunn said of Sommer's sexual appetite in the months after her husband's death. "This is somebody who's celebrating."

Gunn called a series of Sommer's former friends and lovers to the stand this week to question them about the defendant's sexual encounters with four men, the breast implant surgery she had two months after her husband's death, and her trips to Tijuana with girlfriends, where she flashed her new breasts to strangers in a wet T-shirt contest.

Story continues

The defense team, however, underscored the lack of evidence against Sommer.

"What did they prove beyond a reasonable doubt?" attorney Robert Udell argued in his closing. "That she had sex too often and too early after Todd's death for some people's tastes."

Udell claimed the defendant was attempting to fill the emotional loss of her husband.

"There's absolutely no evidence that these two didn't get along," Udell said. "They were deeply in love with each other."

The couple's love letters, July 1999 wedding photograph, and pictures of Todd's Marine memorabilia, including his burial flags displayed in Sommer's home at the time of her November 2005 arrest, were entered into evidence.

Cynthia Sommer faces life in prison without the chance of parole if jurors find her guilty of first-degree murder and the special allegations of administering poison for the purpose of financial gain.

Sommer sat quietly at the defense table Thursday. She wore a tan pantsuit, her dark hair in a ponytail. She occasionally glanced at jurors, and smiled at her mother, daughter and family members who filled the last row of seats in the gallery.

Sommer betrayed no emotion as her attorney defended her decision to have breast augmentation.

"If she had wanted a nose job, would we even be talking about this?" Udell said. "It's insulting that that makes her guilty of a crime."