WAYNE COUNTY, Mich. -- Jean Pierre Orlewicz either planned and carried out the premeditated murder of Daniel Sorensen on Nov. 7 and then decapitated the victim's body to hide the evidence, or he killed in self-defense and mutilated Sorensen's body in a panic over reprisal by mobsters.

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Those are the two scenarios in front of a jury determining the fate of Orlewicz in the so-called 'Thrill Kill' trial. Closing arguments are over and the jury has the case.

The jury will be back to deliberating on Wednesday.

Tuesday afternoon, the jury took a break in its deliberations to ask the judge the difference between first and second-degree murder. Then they went home for the day.

Orlewicz, 18, of Plymouth, is accused of killing Sorensen, 26, of River Rouge. The defendant testified in his Detroit trial that he decapitated the victim and burned his fingers to hide his identity because he feared the man had mobster relatives who would come after him.

Orlewicz Testifies

It is a claim that was reinforced Tuesday during closing arguments delivered by defense attorney Joseph Niskar.

Niskar asked the jury to consider the "fear factor" that he said came into play when Orlewicz brought a knife to a gunfight, knowing that his alleged victim carried a gun and was twice his size.

Sorensen was 6 feet tall and 280 pounds.

There was no premeditation, no time to plan in advance, Niskar said. There was only a plan to set the stage for an extortion plot that went wrong.

The mutilation that occurred after the killing, the defense said, was the work of a person panicking over possible reprisals by what he thought were Sorensen's mob-connected family.

Prosecutor Robert Moran painted a different picture in his closing arguments – one of a person who had time to reflect on what he was doing, thus deserving the charge of premeditated murder.

Moran pointed out that Orlewicz stabbed Sorensen 13 times while the victim held up his hands to fend off the blows. Enough time would have passed, Moran said, for Orlewicz to have weighed the pros and cons of what he was doing.

Moran also said that the felony murder count should stick, since Orlewicz also stole the victim's gun after the killing – after he threw away the bloody rags from removing Sorensen's head, burning his fingertips and then lighting the body on fire.

First-degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life without parole.