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UPDATE: Jury to resume deliberations Thursday in Morales murder trial

Sioux City Journal - 6/15/2017

SIOUX CITY | Rogelio Morales may be guilty, his attorney said, but he's not guilty of murder.

Morales had just been confronted with the fact that his wife wanted to leave him. It was a total shock to the Marine veteran, who had recently been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, and he later told police he had blacked out and didn't remember strangling his wife while they sat in their parked car on a Sioux City street, defense attorney Mike Williams said in his closing arguments Wednesday morning.

"If you're blacked out, things aren't working right," Williams said of Morales' state of mind. "He choked her. There's no doubt about it. He is guilty of voluntary manslaughter, not murder."

Jurors left the courtroom just after noon to begin their deliberations. After 5 p.m., they adjourned for the evening and will resume deliberations Thursday morning.

Morales, 29, of Hubbard, Nebraska, is charged in Woodbury County District Court with first-degree murder for the April 19, 2015, death of Margarita Morales, 21. Court documents say he strangled her in his car while parked in the 2200 block of Floyd Boulevard after she told him she no longer wanted to be married to him and was seeing another man.

After hearing that, Morales told investigators, the next thing he remembered was that his wife was not breathing and she may have been dead, court documents said. He then took her to his sister's house, where they called 911.

In his closing arguments, First Assistant Woodbury County Attorney Mark Campbell told jurors they had heard Margarita Morales' former co-workers at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino testify about how their friend described her husband as jealous and controlling, someone who appeared to be angry if his wife went out with her friends after work rather than being at home.

Morales had already assaulted his wife two weeks before her death, causing her to move in with her sister, Campbell said.

"This defendant would not tolerate his wife leaving him," Campbell said. "A reasonable person is not going to kill the person who's getting out of a relationship."

Williams said that after the domestic abuse incident, Morales sought help from the Veterans Administration and had begun counseling, and there had been no evidence showing he had previously threatened her.

"What evidence is there to support that he ever, ever threatened her if she left him? None," Williams said.

If found guilty of first-degree murder, Morales would face a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole. The jury has the option of finding him guilty of lesser offenses ranging from second-degree murder to assault.