By RACHEL DAVIS

rdavis@gctelegram.com

JOHNSON CITY -- Closing arguments were made this morning in the murder re-trial of Chad and Shannon Floyd, with the jury set to begin deliberations in the afternoon.

The Floyds are charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the death of 27-year-old Michael Golub, Shannon Floyd's ex-boyfriend, in May 2005. Golub was last seen May 20, 2005, and his body has never been found.

The couple's first trial, which lasted nearly a month, resulted in a hung jury in July 2007. The retrial began April 7 at the Stanton County District Courthouse.

Closing arguments originally were scheduled for Wednesday, but heated discussion Wednesday morning between the prosecution and defense over the testimony of a defense witness delayed the proceedings and eventually led Chief Judge Jack Lively to call for a recess and for closing arguments to commence today.

Defense attorney Dan Monnat made a motion to have one of his witnesses, Helen Blevins, clarify a statement made on the stand about when a conversation occurred between her and Golub a few days prior to his disappearance.

Monnat said Blevins testified she had talked to Golub between "4 or 5 p.m. or a little later" on May 17, 2005. During that conversation, Golub allegedly told her he had done something that would anger people in town, that he knew about a meth lab and could disappear where no one would find him.

Defense attorneys argued that the state inferred to the jury that the conversation between Blevins and Golub did not occur between 4 or 5 p.m. because Blevins still was at work driving a school bus.

"They made it sound like the conversation never took place when they know it did," said defense attorney Kurt Kerns.

Richard Guinn, lead prosecutor assigned to the case through the Kansas State Attorney General's Office, objected to the motion, stating the defense had Blevins' job and time records and also had a report outlining an interview between her and their own investigator in their possession when she testified.

According to the investigator's report, Blevins said she spoke with Golub between 8:30 and 9 p.m. but the defense did not catch the discrepancy until after she left the stand.

Judge Lively denied the defense's motion and said the jury could decide what "a little later" meant without having the witness take the stand to clarify what she said.

According to the prosecution, the Floyds wanted Golub out of the picture because they wanted custody of Golub and Shannon Floyd's son, Mikey, and wanted to leave the area and move to Montana, Shannon's home state.

The prosecution has argued that to further the plot, the couple made a false representation with the First National Bank, a bank managed by Floyd family members, to sell a bank share for $50,000 to another relative. The $50,000 allegedly was to be used to pay Golub off in exchange for relinquishing his parental rights. The money was then sent to Western State Bank in Ulysses and an account opened under the full name of Golub and Floyd's son.

The defense has argued that the Floyds have been unfairly targeted and that everyday activities had been taken out of context during the investigation and subsequent trials.

Defense attorneys have argued that Golub never went to the Floyd home to pick up his son the night he disappeared, as he was supposedly intending to do, and instead drove into Johnson City and eventually disappeared.