The state rested its case against defendant Dequan "Mr. Barlow" McKethan Wednesday after a special agent from the FBI testified about the cell phone records of McKethan and homicide victim Darius Bishop.

Attorney John T. Walkley rested for the defense without calling any witnesses, and McKethan confirmed to Judge Barbara Bailey Jongbloed that he has decided not to testify. 

Attorneys will deliver closing arguments Thursday morning, then Jongbloed will instruct the jury and dismiss them to begin deliberating.

McKethan, 37, of Norwich is on trial for murder, possession of narcotics and carrying a pistol without a permit.

He is accused of fatally shooting Bishop, 28, of Norwich on Sept. 25, 2012, and leaving his body at the Charles Long Sports Complex in Bozrah.

He opted for a jury trial rather than accept the state's offer to plead guilty in exchange for a 40-year prison sentence.

Over the past week, prosecutors Lawrence J. Tytla and David J. Smith elicited testimony from first responders, Norwich and state police, the state medical examiner, forensic examiners and civilian witnesses.

The jury watched a video of a state police interrogation of McKethan that took place two days after the shooting when McKethan was pulled over by Norwich police and found, police said, with a bag of cocaine in his jeans pocket and a .22-caliber pistol under the driver's seat of his car.

On Wednesday, special agent Kevin R. Horan, one of 12 members of the FBI's Cellular Analysis Survey Team (CAST), explained how he used call detail reports from Verizon to analyze the activity on the defendant's and victim's cellphones and to estimate their locations throughout the night based on cell tower locations and coordinates provided by the phone company.

The two phones, both using the same sector of a cell tower in the Norwich area, exchanged six phone calls between 10:11 and 10:26 p.m. on Sept. 24, according to Horan.

Bishop's phone called McKethan's phone four times, with two of the calls going to voice mail, Horan testified, and McKethan's phone placed two calls to Bishop's.

McKethan's phone used towers in the Norwich area for calls and texts between 10:41 and 11:19 p.m., he testified.

At 12:08 a.m. on Sept. 25, Bishop's accessed a tower in the New London area. Between 1:04 a.m. and 1:05 a.m., both of the phones used the same sector of a cell tower on Interstate 395.

According to Horan's testimony, the data showed Bishop's phone "extremely close" to the Bozrah sports field between 1:59 and 2:29 a.m.

During that time, a neighbor in the area told police he heard a single gunshot.

After 2:30 a.m., Horan said, Bishop's and McKethan's phones accessed different cell towers to the north and east of the sports complex.

Prosecutor David J. Smith asked Horan why McKethan's phone was not in the "homicide" area at the same time as Bishop's phone.

"He must not have been using the phone at that time," Horan testified. "Inactivity is the same as when a phone is powered off."

From 2:41 to 2:45 a.m., Bishop's phone accessed a tower in Norwich, and Horan said that was the last activity seen on the phone, which was never recovered by police.

McKethan's phone used cell sites in downtown Norwich between 3:31 a.m. and 3:50 a.m., he testified.

Horan admitted under cross-examination by Walkley that determining the location of a cell phone after the fact, based on historical data provided by the phone company, is imprecise.

However, he said, law enforcement authorities can work with phone providers to track the live cellphones of fugitives and missing persons.

k.florin@theday.com

Twitter: @KFLORIN