LIVE COVERAGE: Travis Standlee murder trial nears its conclusion

Closing arguments will be 9 a.m. today in the Travis Standlee murder trial in Scott County District Court.

Standlee, 45, a homeless man already serving 50 years for killing Raymond Ursino, 56, on Sept. 5, 2015, faces a life sentence without parole if convicted of first-degree murder in the strangulation death of Sharon Mead, 41, whose body was found Sept. 11, 2015, at a bus stop on the Coe College campus.

This trial was moved to Scott County District Court based on pretrial publicity to ensure Standlee receives a fair and impartial trial.

A prosecutor on Tuesday said during his opening statement that Standlee met Mead and her boyfriend that night, started drinking with them and then got Mead alone and started kissing her. When Mead rejected him, Standlee started choking her as he was trying to gain control of her.

Standlee testified Thursday that Mead was asleep but alive after she fell off the bus stop bench when he left her to get food for them.

His testimony on Thursday was different from an audio recording played for the jury for his interview with a police investigator about six days after Mead died. Standlee first told the investigator he left Mead and never went to the bus stop. Then he seemed to implicate her boyfriend and then said he was with Mead at the bus stop and she fell off the bench and he thought she was dead when he left.