BEDFORD, Pa. -- It was trial by fury yesterday in the Joseph Clark murder case.

Mr. Clark, charged in the kidnapping and killing eight years ago of a 95-pound dairy farmer named Holly Notestine, decided he would not sit quietly while the lawyers summed up the evidence that could send him to Death Row.

His eyes wide and his voice shrill, Mr. Clark stood and loudly interrupted his own attorney's closing argument to the jury. As the seven men and five women on the jury stared in confusion, Mr. Clark ranted about getting a passage he had written in a letter put into the trial record. The judge told him to sit down and be quiet, but Mr. Clark continued to fume and mutter.

Emotion also seemed to overcome Barbara Weiss, one of the defense attorneys. She broke down and wept in open court as she read a "confession" from a man who once claimed to have committed the murder with which Mr. Clark is charged.

District Attorney William Higgins, angered by these outbursts, objected to the conduct of the defendant and Ms. Weiss. He asked Bedford County President Judge Daniel Howsare to make certain that their tactics were reported in the official trial transcript.

Then, as Mr. Higgins rose to make his own final argument to the jurors, those at the defense table seemed on the verge of an argument of their own.

The lead defense attorney, Thomas Crawford, pointed a finger at Mr. Clark, then said: "You keep your mouth shut." Mr. Crawford whispered this admonition, but his voice was still loud enough to be heard through the courtroom.

Mr. Crawford had argued for 2¹/₂ hours, outlining what he called holes and distortions in the state's case.

"Our contention is, and I believe you will see this, that the evidence is a house of cards," he said.

He said nothing but circumstance and perhaps dishonest police work tied Mr. Clark to the murder of Ms. Notestine.

Somebody abducted her from in front of her mobile home on April 30, 2000, as she was giving nighttime baths to her two small children. The younger of them, Logan Grubb, said he saw a big fat man, his hair dark on top and white on the sides, hit his mother and force her into a car.

Five years later, after Ms. Notestine's skeletal remains were found, a state trooper would say the child knew the kidnapper as "Tiny," Mr. Clark's nickname. But, Mr. Crawford said, this crucial detail of identification was left out of the trooper's initial report. He called this suspicious and said it was proof that police had rushed to judgment against Mr. Clark, then had done whatever was necessary to make a case against him.

"Where's the beef?" Mr. Crawford said of the prosecution's case. "Where's the evidence?"

He also focused on a confession to the murder by convicted bank robber David Lucas. In a letter sent to the defense in July 2005, Mr. Lucas said he killed Ms. Notestine after she insulted him at a convenience store.

Mr. Lucas, 34, appeared at the trial as a defense witness, but he declined to repeat his confession under oath, even after Mr. Higgins gave him immunity from prosecution.

The prosecutor said Mr. Lucas made up his bizarre story, perhaps so he could attend the trial and get a few days away from federal prison, where he is serving a 34-year sentence.

The district attorney said no evidence exists tying Mr. Lucas to the murder. But for some reason, Mr. Higgins said, Mr. Lucas signed a bogus confession that Mr. Crawford wrote for him.

Mr. Higgins told jurors that state troopers considered Mr. Clark a suspect as soon as Logan Grubb described him as the kidnapper. Soon after, police headed to the farmhouse that Mr. Clark shared with his mother so they could question him.

Before they got there, Mr. Clark's car burned in a fire. Mr. Higgins said Mr. Clark set the car on fire to destroy evidence of the murder. The state has charged him with arson in addition to murder and kidnapping.

Mr. Clark, 48, said the car fire was the result of a mechanical problem. His lawyer gave the jurors a different story, telling them the fire started because of a marijuana cigarette that Mr. Clark had carelessly discarded.

A knife found in the smoldering car could have caused the 17 stab wounds that probably killed Ms. Notestine, prosecutors say.

They also said a fresh tire print from Mr. Clark's car was recovered from Ms. Notestine's yard the night of her abduction.

Mr. Higgins told the jurors no one thing -- not the fire, the physical description of the kidnapper or the tire evidence -- proves that Mr. Clark is guilty.

"We don't want you to convict him for any one thing. We want you to convict him for all of them," he told the jurors.

The jurors, imported from Dauphin County, got the case last night and probably will deliberate at least part of today. If they convict Mr. Clark of murder in the first degree, the trial would continue to a penalty phase. Then the jurors would have to decide if the state should put him to death or imprison him for the rest of his life.