Testimony ended on March 6 in the murder trial of Matthew Scott Sullivan who is accused of killing his wife who disappeared from their Point Loma house two years before her body was found.
Jurors will hear closing arguments on March 11 in the slaying of Elizabeth Sullivan, 32, before they begin deliberations.
Sullivan, 35, did not testify about the slaying of his wife who was found dead Oct. 4, 2016, in San Diego Bay, which was not far from where the couple lived in military housing in Point Loma.
The trial is ahead of its schedule as the seven-man, five-woman jury with four alternates were told it would last until March 20.
Elizabeth Sullivan disappeared in October 2014, but her decomposed body was found in 2016 on the same day her husband and children moved from the three-story house to Delaware.
Deputy District Attorney Jill Lindberg has suggested that Sullivan kept the body in a garage freezer or in the attic as the medical examiner determined she had been dead for some time when she was found on the shoreline by a man walking his dog.
Elizabeth Sullivan had been stabbed numerous times and the body only weighed 49 pounds when found, said a deputy medical examiner. Her blood was found underneath carpeting in her bedroom after the house was emptied in 2016.
Sullivan’s attorney, Marcus Debose, said in his opening statement Feb. 21 that Elizabeth Sullivan had a habit of cutting herself and her husband discovered she had broken a mirror and cut her arm, causing her to bleed onto the carpeting.
Debose presented two sheriff’s deputies who said they thought they saw her in a Point Loma park after seeing a missing person’s report about her disappearance.
The last witness March 6 was Ronald Agustin, who worked for the city’s park and recreation department and who said there was a group on Oct. 10-12, 2014 who had a permit to sleep outside in the park where deputies said they saw Elizabeth Sullivan.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the evidence portion of the trial is completed,” said San Diego Superior Court Judge Albert Harutunian III to jurors.
Harutunian told jurors the trial would not be in session on March 9 and 10 and they would return March 11 to hearing closing arguments and instructions before they start deliberations.
The couple got married in 2010 after meeting in Virginia where Sullivan was initially stationed in the Navy. He was discharged honorably some time after he, his children, and another woman relocated to Delaware.
Sullivan has pleaded not guilty. He remains in jail on $2 million bail.
