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Ogden • It was a trial 30 years in the making — and it's nearly over after only two days of testimony.

Both prosecutors and the defense team for Douglas Anderson Lovell rested their cases Tuesday in Lovell's death penalty trial. He is charged with aggravated murder, accused of killing 39-year-old Joyce Yost in 1985.

Prosecutors took several hours over two days to build their case, alleging Lovell kidnapped Yost in August 1985, took her to the mountains and strangled her to death to keep her from testifying that he had raped her months earlier. The 12-member jury also heard Lovell confess twice to the crime: Once under oath at a 1993 court hearing and once to his ex-wife, who was wearing a police recording device.

The jury will deliberate Wednesday and decide whether Lovell is guilty of murdering Yost — an allegation that his defense attorney didn't contest during opening statements on Monday.

Lovell's attorneys rarely cross-examined any of the witnesses. Their focus, they said repeatedly, is on the next stage — the penalty phase, which could begin as soon as Friday if the jury convicts Lovell of aggravated murder.

"Our participation in the trial phase is going to be somewhat minimal," defense attorney Michael Bouwhuis told jurors during his opening statement Monday. "We are going to be focusing our energy and witnesses on the second phase."

Bouwhuis said the defense will ask jurors at the next stage if they are "willing to give a life." If Lovell is convicted, the jury can sentence him either to death or life in prison without parole.

Lovell, who is now 57, has already been sentenced to death once for murdering Yost. But after Lovell and his attorneys spent years fighting a judge's 1993 decision to impose the death penalty, the Utah Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that Lovell could withdraw his guilty plea because he should have been better informed of his rights during court proceedings.

On Tuesday, jurors heard Lovell describe Yost's death in his own words as a transcript from the 1993 sentencing hearing was read aloud.

At that hearing, he described himself as fixated on getting rid of Yost before a preliminary hearing in the rape case. He said he twice hired men to kill her and failed. After Yost testified at the preliminary hearing, he said, he decided to kill her himself. And he explained how he did so on Aug. 10, 1985, 10 days before his rape trial was scheduled to start.

"You are the one who took Joyce Yost's life, is that right?" a prosecutor asks, according to the transcript read aloud.

"Yes," Lovell replied, telling the prosecutor later: "I suffocated her."

Lovell confessed that he entered Yost's apartment through an unlocked kitchen window and held a sharp hunting knife to the sleeping woman. Her hand was cut by the sharp blade, according to the transcript, and blood soaked through her sheets and onto the mattress.

Lovell said he promised not to kill her, telling her that he just needed to hide her until the rape trial was finished. But he then cleaned her home, flipped the mattress, packed her a suitcase and took her to the mountains, where he strangled her to death, he confessed.

He later burned her bloody sheets and the items he had packed in her suitcase, Lovell admitted.

Though Yost was missing when Lovell's rape case finally did go to trial later in 1985, a transcript of her preliminary hearing testimony helped to convict Lovell of the rape. He is currently serving a 15-years-to-life sentence for that crime in the Utah State Prison.

The jurors in the murder case also heard Yost's testimony on Monday, where she detailed the brutal rape at the hands of a stranger.

Prosecutors say Lovell followed Yost home from a Clearfield restaurant one night in April 1985, and asked her out for a drink. She said no, and he attacked her, forced her into his car and drove her to his Clearfield apartment where he sexually assaulted her.

Yost was missing for six years before Lovell's ex-wife broke the case for police and confessed what she knew about the crimes.

Lovell pleaded guilty to murder in 1993 as part of a deal to spare him the death penalty. Prosecutors agreed not to seek his execution if Lovell could lead authorities to where Yost was buried. Despite several trips to the area around Snowbasin Ski Resort to search for the body, buried eight years earlier under only leaves, brush and handfuls of dirt, according to court testimony, Lovell was unable to lead police officers to the woman's remains prior to his sentencing date.