Closing arguments set for Friday in Nicholas Firkus murder trial

Defense attorneys representing Nicholas Firkus rested their case on Thursday after calling five witnesses, and a Ramsey County district judge set closing arguments for Friday.

Firkus, 39, did not testify. He is on trial for the April 25, 2010, slaying of his wife, Heidi Firkus, who was shot in the couple's St. Paul home.

On Thursday afternoon, Judge Leonardo Castro rejected a request from defense attorneys to acquit their client on the grounds that prosecutors had provided "zero direct evidence that he murdered his wife."

In making his decision, Castro said premeditation and intent rest on circumstantial evidence, and that the evidence submitted by the state "could sustain a conviction, so the order is denied."

"Motive is not an element of murder, but a motive can explain a reason for an act," he said.

Prosecutors contend Firkus killed his wife because he had not told her that they were to be evicted from their home on the 1700 block of Minnehaha Avenue W. the next day. Firkus, they contend, had kept to himself information that the couple was behind on their mortgage payments and their house had been foreclosed.

Defense attorneys said Firkus struggled with an intruder on the day of Heidi's death, and that the shotgun in his hand went off twice. One shot hit Heidi in the back, killing her, and a second struck Nicholas in the leg before the intruder ran off, they said.

Julie Firkus described her son as a handyman who could work on his house or others, as he demonstrated while working for the nonprofit Urban Homeworks. She also said he was conflict-avoidant and never mentioned the couple's financial struggles.

"They didn't come to us and ask for help," she said. "They kept the secret to themselves."

In arguing for an acquittal, defense attorney Joe Friedberg said Nicholas Firkus had not kept the couple's financial woes a secret from Heidi, pointing to foreclosure notices and bank statements that were "all over the house." Furthermore, he argued, the couple's financial problems were not a motive for murder because if Firkus killed his wife, everything would become public.

"He does not achieve anything," Friedberg said. "Everybody in the world would know about it."

In her testimony, Julie Firkus said she was at the couple's residence with Nicholas Firkus' defense team about three weeks after Heidi's death. She was there to do a "walk-through" re-enactment, she said, but retracted her statement under cross-examination.

Julie Firkus also told the court that she instilled in her three children the value of marriage, describing it as a holy sacrament worth fighting for.

Prosecutors spent nine days calling witnesses and presenting hundreds of exhibits before resting their case midday Thursday. Attorney Rachel Kraker said Firkus grabbed the gun as the couple ran downstairs, that he had it in his hand and that his finger pulled the trigger when the fatal shot was fired.