1984 cold case closing arguments set

FORT WORTH, Texas (KXAN) - Closing arguments are set to begin in the trial of a 45-year-old man accused of fatally stabbing his friend when they were teenagers because she refused his romantic advances.

Ryland Shane Absalon faces up to life in prison if convicted of capital murder in Ginger Hayden's 1984 death.

Absalon was arrested in 2010 at his home in Sierra Vista, Ariz.. A Fort Worth police cold-case unit had evidence tested and it matched his DNA.

Two participants in a drug treatment center testified this week that when Absalon was also in the program in 1986, he confessed to killing Hayden.

But defense attorneys say DNA under Hayden's fingernails and a quilt matched an unknown man. They also said Absalon falsely confessed because he was pressured and abused in the treatment program.