Jury to hear closing arguments in Tai Chan murder trial

Was it self defense, or cold-blooded murder? On Monday, the state and the defense will have one last chance to convince a jury what really happened the night a Santa Fe deputy was shot and killed.

Tai Chan is charged with first degree murder. He’s accused of killing his colleague Jeremy Martin at the Hotel Encanto in 2014. The two stopped in Las Cruces after transporting a prisoner to Arizona.

It’s been a tense couple of weeks. The jury has heard emotional testimony from numerous witnesses. Then on Friday, Chan himself took the stand giving his side of what happened the night of the killing.

“I knew if I didn’t have his gun, I was going to die,” Chan said.

Chan said the two got in an argument over a double homicide case in Santa Fe. He claims Martin told him the two teens involved “deserved to die.” After a night of drinking, Chan said they went back to the hotel and that’s when things got violent.

He says Martin punched him repeatedly and hit him with his gun. He alleges Martin threatened to shoot him. Chan’s girlfriend was on the phone with him, listening to it all.

‘”Your first thought was what?” Defense Attorney Thomas Clark said.

“That Tai was dead,” Leah Tafoya-Chan, who is now Chan’s wife, said.

The prosecution says the killing was willful and deliberate. While Chan admitted to killing Martin, he says it was in self-defense.

If convicted, Chan faces life in prison.