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The jury in the hitchhiker murder case is considering its verdict.
Michael Scott Wallace has denied the killing of German backpacker Birgit Brauer at Lucys Gully, near New Plymouth, in September 2005.
In his summing up, the Justice Mark Cooper said there was no real issue that Ms Brauer was murdered.
"The defence is not that she wasn't murdered, but that the accused was not the murderer," he said.
Justice Cooper told the jury they must reach their decision uninfluenced by prejudice and sympathy.
"The case will undoubtedly have invoked in you some strong emotions," he said.
"You have to weigh the evidence clinically and try to be dispassionate about it."
The Crown said Wallace picked up Ms Brauer as she hitchhiked between Wanganui and New Plymouth.
Then, with a sexual motive he drove her to Lucy's Gully and killed her - beating her head with a metal bar and stabbing her once through the heart.
The defence says that police got the wrong man, and Wallace was a victim of coincidence.
The jury retired just before 11.30am to consider its verdict.
- NZ HERALD STAFF, NZPA
