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Jury deliberations continued Tuesday in the trial of the man accused of using a rifle to fatally shoot a clerk inside a west Salt Lake City neighborhood smoke shop two years ago.

Four men and four women are deciding the fate of Yelfris Sosa-Hurtado, who has pleaded not guilty in 3rd District Court to one count of first-degree felony aggravated murder and nine counts of third-degree felony discharge of a weapon in connection with the March 14, 2012, shooting death of Stephen Guadalupe Chavez.

If convicted, Sosa-Hurtado faces a possible prison term of 25 years to life, or life without the possibility of parole.

Jurors were handed the case about 5:30 p.m. Monday. They quickly told the judge that after five days of testimony, they wanted to take a break before beginning deliberations in earnest. They returned to the courthouse at 8 a.m. Tuesday.

On Monday, Sosa-Hurtado, a 28-year-old former University of Utah student, took the witness stand to testify in his own defense, emphatically denying any involvement in the shooting.

"No," a calm Sosa-Hurtado said assuredly, when asked by defense attorney Patrick Corum if he had ever been inside CJ's Smoke Shop, 876 W. 800 South.

Over and over again to questions about events on March 14, 2012, his answer was the same: No, he had never met the victim, Stephen Guadalupe Chavez. No, he had not been in a fistfight with Chavez earlier that day. And no, he did not go to the smoke shop with a rifle and open fire.

Instead, Sosa-Hurtado told the jury, he was at a friend's home in Kearns at the time police say the shooting took place — shortly after 8 p.m. The former U. computer science student said he then went home and was in bed watching TV with his wife, a Salt Lake Community College student who was studying for midterm exams.

In closing arguments, Salt Lake County prosecutors argued that the facts of the "cold-blooded murder" were clear: Sosa-Hurtado shot Chavez at close range inside the smoke shop because he had been bested in a fistfight by the clerk in an alley behind the store and he needed to settle the score.

"His intention was to shoot and his intention was to kill," Assistant Salt Lake County District Attorney Vincent Meister told jurors. "He said it as he walked into the store, 'I am going to kill you.' "

Prosecutors say the first bullet fired shattered a display case and sent shards of glass into the leg of shopowner Isabel Chavez, the victim's father.

The second was aimed at Stephen Chavez, who dove behind a counter to the floor. Prosecutors say Sosa-Hurtado leaned over the case and fired two more shots into Chavez's back.

While fleeing, the gunman fired an additional 10 shots. A bullet casing later found by police in a garbage at Sosa-Hurtado's home matched those found at the store, prosecutors said.

Defense attorneys contend the case is one of mistaken identity and said there is no physical evidence that connects Sosa-Hurtado to the shooting.

Instead, they argued, prosecutors have hung their case on a string of witnesses, including Chavez's own father, who provided inconsistent descriptions of the alleged shooter, and unreliable police work, including, a failure to obtain any DNA or fingerprint evidence from the shell casings of assault rifle bullets found at the scene and in Sosa-Hurtado's garbage can.

"What are we doing here, except Vladimir came forward?" defense attorney Ralph Dellapiana asked.

Vladimir Suarez-Campos, 40, is the man whom police initially believed had served as Sosa-Hurtado's getaway driver.

In testimony last week, Suarez-Campos said he had gone to the store with Sosa-Hurtado because he believed his friend had been beaten up by three men and wanted to help him defend his honor. Suarez-Campos said he was expecting a fistfight, but testified that he watched Sosa-Hurtado walk into the shop with a rifle and begin shooting.

"He never told me that he had a weapon and he never said anything about shooting," said Suarez-Campos, who testified to leaving the scene on foot.

Defense attorneys have dismissed Suarez-Campos's testimony as unreliable. He faces his own, separate murder charge in connection with the shooting, but has cut a deal with prosecutors that allows him to exchange his testimony for a guilty plea to a lesser charge of manslaughter and a sentence that includes no prison time.

Twitter: @jenniferdobner