The Marie Davis murder jury today opted to head home early, and to continue its deliberations tomorrow morning.
Justice Lester Chisholm decided this week the jurors would not need to be kept together and stay at a hotel overnight, after summing up in the High Court at Christchurch.
Dean Stewart Cameron, a 39-year-old road worker, is charged with the rape and murder of the 15-year-old Christchurch schoolgirl.
Miss Davis disappeared from her home early on April 6 last year, about 11 days before her naked body was found in the Waimakariri River.
Justice Chisholm spent about two hours summing up the case this afternoon. The jurors began their deliberations, before returning to the court to clarify a few points.
They then passed a message through court officials that they wished to retire for the night.
They will continue their deliberations at 9.30am tomorrow.
Earlier, the defence said the only proper and safe verdicts were not guilty.
"This is plainly a tragedy," said defence counsel Frank Hogan.
"But tragedy is not relieved by an unjust verdict. The net result to the community is worse than before."
He said the finding of a bundle of bedding in the Waimakariri River by two boys on April 14 had major implications for Cameron.
The Crown said the body of the 15-year-old must have floated free from the bedding when it was prodded by sticks the boys held as they tried to get it out of the river.
But Mr Hogan said the defence was that there had been no body in the bundle, and the boys had not seen it. The body was found downstream two days later.
The defence raised the possibility Miss Davis went into the river accidentally, or by suicide, after a sexual encounter on the river bank.
He said life had its challenges for this young woman. The jury would have several pages of her diary to examine as exhibits when they retired to consider their verdict.
He asked the jury to consider whether there had been a homicide and if there had been, whether the Crown had proved Cameron was responsible.
