Onstott jury continues to deliberate

TAMPA -- Jurors in the first-degree murder trial of David Lee Onstott have been deliberating for more than nine hours.

They have asked for electronic equipment and headphones -- presumably to listen to the recorded conversations offered by the state as evidence of Onstott’s guilt -- and surgical gloves.

The trial is now in its ninth day. Jurors began deliberating Wednesday afternoon and were excused for the evening after they wrote to the judge in a note that, “It might be a long night.”

Onstott, 40, is charged with first-degree murder and attempted sexual battery. He is accused of killing 13-year-old Sarah Michelle Lunde of Ruskin in April 2005.

Prosecutors said Onstott came to Sarah’s home looking to have sex with her mother and ended up killing Sarah.

There is no physical evidence and no eyewitnesses that tie Onstott, a registered sex offender, to the death. Onstott, however, made incriminating statements during several conversations.

-- Colleen Jenkins, Times staff writer