An ACT Supreme Court jury has retired to consider its verdict in the murder trial of David Harold Eastman.
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Acting Justice Murray Kellam sent the twelve men and women into the jury room to begin their deliberations at about 10.30am on Wednesday.
The marathon murder trial started nearly six months ago on June 4 with an empanelment at Albert Hall.
The jurors have sat for 58 days of evidence, heard from more than 127 witnesses, and roughly 22 days of closing addresses from prosecutor Murugan Thangaraj SC, defence counsel George Georgiou SC, and the judge.
They had also heard evidence from witnesses who had either died or were unable to attend court, in the form of some 41 more documents and pieces of evidence.
The trial had produced over 5000 pages of transcripts.
Mr Eastman, 73, has pleaded not guilty to the January 10, 1989, murder of Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Colin Winchester.
Mr Winchester was shot dead on that date with two bullets to the head as he got out of his car at his home in Deakin.
The Crown said Mr Eastman had developed a hatred of police and that there were too many coincidences that pointed to him as the killer.
But Mr Eastman's defence pointed to the gaps in the Crown case and argued there was a reasonable possiblity someone connected to the mafia had shot Mr Winchester.
On Wednesday morning the judge finalised his closing address to the jury.
Sixteen men and women were originally selected to sit on the jury, with 14 remaining when it came time for the jury to retire.
But because the law requires a jury of 12 to return a verdict, two members had to be ballotted off before the deliberations begun.
Acting Justice Kellam told the jury that whoever was balloted off should not feel their time was wasted.
He said their remaining until the end was vital to keep the trial going, as the jury could have lost more than the two it did through illness or otherwise.
The judge's associate shook a ballot box containing the 14 jury numbers written on pieces of paper before pulling out two numbers and reading them out.
At the judge's request the corresponding jurors, a man and a woman, raised their hands.
The jury exited to the jury room where the two selected in the ballot were to say their goodbyes and the remaining twelve begin their deliberations.
Before the day had ended they sent a note to the court, asking for copies of agreed statements of facts and portions of a day's transcript.
They will return to continue deliberating on Thursday.
