The fate of a former Toronto traffic officer accused of murdering his mistress is now in the hands of a jury.

Jurors deliberated for several hours in a Newmarket, Ont. courthouse on Tuesday in the high-profile trial of Richard Wills.

The six-man, six-woman panel will resume deliberations at 10 a.m. on Wednesday.

Wills, 50, is charged with first-degree murder in the February 2002 death of Linda Mariani.

The 40-year-old mother's body wasn't found until Wills surrendered to police about four months later. Detectives found the corpse stuffed in a garbage bin located behind a fake wall in Wills' basement.

The Crown maintains Wills was a possessive lover who became enraged when Mariani wouldn't leave her husband.

Prosecutors allege Wills struck Mariani with a baseball bat while inside his Richmond Hill home, then choked her with a skipping rope before sealing up her body.

A bat and skipping rope were found with the body when Wills later led police to it.

During the sensational trial, which included repeated outbursts by Wills, the former constable said Mariani's death was an accident. He maintains she fell down the basement stairs and struck the back of her head on the ceramic tile floor, and died almost instantly.

Wills testified he hid Mariani's body out of a sense of panic. He said he was worried Mariani's relatives would want to bury her in the family plot and not at his Wasaga Beach cottage property, where the couple had planned to be interred together under a secret lovers' pact.

"I loved her. I trusted her with all my heart. I still do,'' Wills told the jury when he testified in August, often appearing on the verge of tears as he described his family, his career, and the shame he felt over his secret nine-year affair with Mariani.

Wills' lawyer Raj Napal admitted his client's behaviour was "shocking" and "alarming," but told the jury that if the Crown's theory was correct, Mariani would have fallen forward and suffered facial injuries as well as a decompressed head fracture.

What the jury didn't hear

There was a lot of information jurors weren't allow to hear during the trial, including the fact Wills offered to plead guilty to manslaughter at the outset of the case in exchange for a prison sentence of eight years. The Crown scoffed at the proposal, and later found evidence that caused them to upgrade the second-degree murder charge to first-degree.

The jury wasn't told Wills confessed to his best friend and ex-wife that he bludgeoned Mariani with a baseball bat and strangled her with a skipping rope.

Wills also admitted the act to a psychiatrist in an unsuccessful bid to be found "not criminally responsible" for the killing by reason of a mental disorder. The ex-officer said Mariani was the devil and voices instructed him to commit the grisly act. The psychiatrist said Wills knew exactly what he was doing, and diagnosed him with narcissistic personality disorder.

The jury didn't hear Mariani desperately wanted to end her relationship with Wills and lived in fear of him. She believed he was untouchable because he was a police officer. Wills' ex-wife was also terrified of Wills, and described years of emotional and physical abuse in divorce papers. She also said he was obsessed with pornography and had a collection of 2,000 videotapes that included snuff films and depictions of bestiality.

During the trial, Wills repeatedly interrupted proceedings and witness testimony by speaking out of turn. He even swore at the judge, and at one point, defecated in his pants in a protest against the judge.

Cost to the public

The cost of the murder trial is being pegged at about $4 million, making it one of the most expensive single-defendant trials in the history of Ontario's justice system.

And taxpayers are footing the bill because Wills "pleaded poverty" and persuaded a judge to order the province to cover his legal costs, CTV's Chris Eby reported.

Wills, however, became a millionaire early in his career by investing in properties and co-owning a skating rink. He owned four homes in York Region, including one valued at $400,000.

Shortly after Wills was charged, he liquidated his assets and transferred control of his properties, his retirement funds and his monthly police pension to his estranged wife and three children.

The judge's order allowed him to receive funding for a lead counsel (who was paid $200 an hour) and junior counsel (who earned $140 an hour).

Wills has gone through 10 different defence lawyers (he fired most of them).

The Attorney General's office said late Tuesday that the first 10 lawyers cost taxpayers $804,000. After Wills' current lawyer is paid, that number is expected to climb to $2 million. Another $2 million has been spent on special court costs, including security.

With a report from CTV's Chris Eby