The Brett Seacat case is now in the hands of a Kansas jury tasked with determining whether he killed his wife Vashti, which officials allege he did.
The Kansas sweethearts tied the knot in Belize in 2004, but after seven years of marriage and two young boys together, their relationship imploded.
In 2011, Vashti filed for divorce. She was depressed, says her husband, when she apparently set the house on fire 16 days later before killing herself.
Investigators allege something else: Murder at the hands of Brett.
Jurors in Kingman, Kan., now must decide whose story is true:
Did Vashti Seacat, 34, a devoted mom who had just planned a vacation to Mexico with her sister, really leave her two children behind in a suicide?
Or did Brett, 37, a former sheriff's deputy, respond to the threatened loss of his marriage and children by shooting her and setting the blaze to cover his tracks?
The case went to the jury Monday.
During opening statements, Assistant Attorney General Amy Hanley said: "Fire destroys evidence; nobody knows that better than a law enforcement officer."
"If I wanted to kill my wife," Brett said during an interview with investigators that was played in court, "I could've come up with something better than that."
Taking the stand for just over a full day last week, Brett Seacat never faltered, his voice at times wavering and at other times stern in his own defense.
He portrayed himself as a loving husband and father to two boys, then ages 2 and 4, who was burdened by his wife's desire to break up with him.
"I would never burn our house," he said under intense questioning from the prosecutor. "I would never expose my children to any situation like that."
But he also said he felt guilt because, in the hours before she died, he threatened to shame his estranged wife if she made good on threats to leave him.
That played into his argument that Vashti was unstable, possibly due to use of a prescribed diet drug known as HCG, whose side effects include depression.
Yet Vashti feared Brett before and after filing for divorce, telling her sister that Brett once said he'd dreamt about killing her - and threatened to torch the house.
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