Alvin Winslow Gross conceded yesterday that he had sex with Margaret Courson, the woman he is accused of raping and killing, but he said it was consensual and that it happened the night before she died.
Mr. Gross, who is charged with kidnapping, rape and murder in the 26-year-old Annapolis woman's death, told an Anne Arundel Circuit Court jury that he spotted her about 11:30 p.m. Dec. 17 walking along Calvert Street and picked her up in his sport utility truck.
The two knew each other, he said, and they talked briefly before she got into the truck.
"She was depressed, and I was, like, trying to cheer her up because I'm a happy-go-lucky type guy," said Mr. Gross, 21, of Shady Side. He said he let her out of his truck a short time later -- safe and unharmed -- about a block from her rooming house on Prince George Street near the City Dock.
Ms. Courson's body was found about 6:30 a.m. Dec. 19 in a cornfield in Tracy's Landing about 20 miles south of Annapolis, ,, naked from the waist up. She had been shot four times.
Police have testified during the weeklong trial before Judge Bruce C. Williams that she was last seen alive about three hours earlier, wandering around the City Dock area "stumbling drunk."
Troy King, a friend of the defendant's, testified that Mr. Gross told him he killed Ms. Courson. And prosecutors presented evidence that the victim's hair, fingerprints and written notes were found in Mr. Gross' truck, and that his revolver fires the same type of bullets that were taken from her body.
Mr. Gross, who works for his father's pier and dock construction company, denied shooting Ms. Courson and denied that he confessed.
He said he bought a birthday card for his mother and a video game at a toy store Dec. 18, got home about 10:30 p.m. and spent the rest of the night watching television with his brother before going to bed about 2:30 a.m.
In earlier testimony, his brother, Termayme Gross, 17, corroborated that account.
In closing arguments yesterday, Assistant State's Attorney Cynthia M. Ferris said Mr. Gross' brother and his parents, who also testified that he stayed home, were mistaken.
He left home that night and killed Ms. Courson after raping her, she said. "She was shot four times, two times in the chest and two times in the neck," Ms. Ferris said, holding up color photographs of the victim's body for the jury to see.
She emphasized that Mr. King was reluctant to tell police about Mr. Gross' confession. "What motive does Troy have to lie?" she asked.
Timothy D. Murnane, Mr. Gross' lawyer, compared the prosecution's case to the manhunt sparked when Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman charged with drowning her two sons, claimed that a black man abducted them.
Mr. Gross is black, and Mr. King is white.
"The whole world believed her," Mr. Murnane said. "Isn't that maybe what happened here?"
The jury is expected to decide the case today.