San Diego

Jury deliberations will begin this morning in the murder trial of San Diego Police Officer Pablo Agrio, accused of killing his wife during an argument.

The attorneys presented their closing arguments Tuesday, and San Diego Superior Court Judge William Kennedy will finish reading his instructions to the jury this morning.

Agrio, 29, of Paradise Hills is charged with killing Alma Agrio, 23, a San Diego County Sheriff’s Department cadet.

His attorney, Edmundo Espinoza, has maintained that the March 26 shooting was an accident, while Deputy Dist. Atty. Craig Rooten told jurors it was murder.

“My client is not guilty of this crime,” Espinoza told jurors. “Mrs. Agrio pulled the gun on Mr. Agrio.”

Agrio, who has since been suspended from the force, testified last week that his wife was accidentally shot in the head as he was trying to “shake some sense into her” after she returned home drunk.

Alma Agrio arrived home at 10:20 the night she was shot, and her blood-alcohol level was 0.26, more than twice the level needed for a drunk-driving conviction, according to testimony.

Agrio testified that his wife grabbed the gun from a cabinet after he stopped her from calling police. He wrestled with her, and the gun discharged, he said.

Rooten disputed Agrio’s account of the shooting.

“It didn’t just go off. He pulled the trigger,” Rooten said.

The prosecutor said Agrio started the argument with his wife after he had “worked himself up” all evening because she was not home. Rooten said Agrio was angry at his wife because of his “archaic attitude” toward her. Agrio felt that “she was not fulfilling her wife and motherly duties,” Rooten said.

Rooten said Agrio did not disarm his wife correctly, by his own testimony.

“He treated suspects on the street better than he treated his wife. . . . He shot her in the back of the head because he was enraged,” Rooten said.