COEUR d'ALENE - Closing arguments and jury deliberations are scheduled to begin this morning in the second-degree murder trial of 29-year-old St. Maries resident Joseph Herrera.

On Tuesday, Benewah County Prosecutor Doug Payne called to the witness stand Sally Aiken, a medical examiner from Spokane County who conducted the autopsy of Herrera's girlfriend, 18-year-old Stefanie Comack.

Herrera is accused of deliberately shooting Comack in the head with a handgun on Christmas day 2011 at Herrera's parents' home in St. Maries. Herrera has maintained her death was an accident.

Aiken said her examination of Comack's wound showed the gun was touching Comack's forehead on the right side when it was fired.

"I have no doubt it's a contact gunshot wound," Aiken told the 1st District Court jury under questioning from Payne.

Aiken said the skin near the entry wound was seared from the heat, there was smoke soot on the bone and "gas" from the blast was forced up under the skin, all characteristics of a contact wound.

A doctor who examined Comack at Benewah Community Hospital in St. Maries immediately after the shooting also testified it was a contact wound.

Comack's mother, Suzy Comack, testified briefly, saying her daughter was "intelligent, beautiful" and "sarcastic at times," but "very, very loving."

Suzy Comack said her daughter had high expectations for herself, wanting to some day work in the medical field or become a lawyer.

"She thought she could argue pretty well," her mother said.

Payne rested his case just before lunch Tuesday, and defense attorney James Siebe called his client to the stand after the break.

Herrera painted the picture of a romance that started fast in August 2011. They initially met through a mutual friend and he said he soon got a call from her asking if he would "want to hang out?"

Within a couple weeks they were spending every night together, and smoking meth on a daily basis, partying for days on end. They usually spent the night upstairs at his parents' house, where she would be shot just months after they met.

Then 28, with no job and using drugs constantly, Herrera told the jury he felt like a "loser" at that time.

He had taken two handguns from his father without permission to protect himself against a man who had been coming after him and vandalized his vehicle.

Herrera suspected Comack had soon begun using meth with other people, too, he said, and seemed to be dropping weight fast.

"She would disappear for two to three hours at a time," he said. It "seemed she was lying about little stuff that didn't matter."

There was never any violence between them, he testified.

At one point, he said, they both agreed to break their cell phones together because they had been spending too much time online communicating with friends.

Comack's mother earlier testified that Herrera had broken Stefanie's phone to stop her from calling her mother.

He said he had never threatened to commit suicide to keep her from leaving him, something other witnesses said he had done.

On the morning of her shooting, Herrera testified that he looked at a new cell phone she had and saw she had been "Facebooking other guys."

He said he confronted her after she woke up, and he said she was mad he had been looking at her phone.

He said, "It bothered me," but didn't described himself as angry.

"I didn't want to be with her if she didn't want to be with me," Herrera said. "I wanted her to do what she wanted to do."

She began gathering up some dirty clothes and preparing to go to her family's place to celebrate Christmas.

He said she was disappointed he didn't want to join her. He planned to give her a ride to her mother's place.

While she loaded up her backpack, he grabbed one of his father's handguns, he said.

He was sitting on a rocking chair next to the bed with the gun when he pointed it at the side of his head and said he would rather shoot himself than go to her mother's house.

"I was just trying to express a point," he said. The clip was out of the gun, he said, and he didn't think there was a round in the chamber.

Herrera said Comack, who was crouched down near him, grabbed the gun and pulled it away from his head.

Siebe asked, "Do you recall how it went off?"

"No," Herrera answered.

He said he had never fired the weapon before.

"Are you guilty of second-degree murder?" Siebe said.

"No, I am not," Herrera said.

During cross examination, Payne asked Herrera, "Your hand was still on the trigger?"

Herrera couldn't remember.

"You don't recall the gun coming into contact with Stefanie's head," Payne asked.

Again, Herrera couldn't recall.

The trial resumes at 9 a.m. today at the Juvenile Justice Building in downtown Coeur d'Alene.