The Rapid City murder trial of a Hot Springs man accused of killing his mother, who disappeared nearly 3 years ago, might go to the jury today.

28-year old Matthew Tornquist is charged with alternate counts of 1st-degree and 2nd-degree murder in the death of 56-year old Catherine Tornquist as well as one count of grant theft. Premeditation is required for 1st-degree murder.

South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley rested his case yesterday and defense attorney Matt Stephens told the Rapid City Journal that his case might be finished by mid-morning today.

Jackley used a week of testimony and over 4 dozen witnesses to lay out the theory that Matthew Tornquist shot his mother in her bed in October 2011 to steal $10,000 she was going to use the next day to buy an RV in Rapid City.

Jackley contends Tornquist used a sheet of plywood to drag his mother’s body to his car and place it in the trunk, then dispose of it at an as-yet undetermined location…possibly on or near the Pine Ridge Reservation.

The prosecution used witnesses, forensic evidence, and DNA evidence to link Tornquist to the scene and a stolen rifle found hidden in his dorm room, his mother’s body to the car, and a sudden spending spree to the money his mother had taken from the bank and which has also never been found.

One of the final prosecution witnesses Monday was a former inmate of the Fall River County jail at the same time as Tornquist, who testified that Tornquist had told him about killing his mother and getting rid of the body.

Matthew Tornquist was indicted by a Fall River County grand jury two years ago. His trial was postponed on multiple occasions for different reasons and eventually moved from Hot Springs to Rapid City over concerns about finding an impartial jury given the local attention on the case.

The prosecution chose not to seek the death penalty, so Tornquist faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted of either 1st-degree or 2nd-degree murder.