Lependorf first had to dispel the image of Timmendequas as a cold-blooded killer who had snuffed out little Megan’s life, not in a moment of panic, but in a brutal and calculating way. For that, she turned to psychologist John Watts Podboy of San Francisco.

During nearly three days of testimony, Podboy described Timmendequas as a slow-witted pedophile -- more a child than a man -- who panicked when Megan screamed and resisted him. He never meant to kill her, Podboy testified.

The prosecution countered with its expert witness, Dr. Robert Sadoff, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. In his estimation, Timmendequas knew exactly what he was doing when he wrapped her bloodied head in a plastic bag, when he grabbed his belt and wrapped it around the little girl’s neck, and when he later lied to Maureen Kanka when she asked him if he had seen her child.

And if there was any question that Timmendequas understood his actions, those questions were erased during the short drive from his house to the park where he dumped Megan’s body, Sadoff testified.

"Either Megan coughed or it was a death rattle, a gurgling sensation that can be made even when people are dead. I just don't know," Sadoff  testified. "If he wanted her to live and she might have still been alive, he could have taken her to a hospital and left her there. If he wanted her to live, he could have taken the plastic bag off her head."

No, Sadoff testified, Timmendequas was not a man so gripped by panic that he didn’t understand the consequence of his actions.

"He was thinking about what he was doing and he was acting in a way that he wanted to at the time," Sadoff testified. "His statement was that he was frightened, that she might tell on him and he would go back to jail. That was his motivation for killing her ... he acted in a clearly logical way, for him."