ROAD TOWN, British Virgin Islands — The white, two-story masonry courthouse at the traffic-clogged corner of Pickering and Fishlock roads was quiet Wednesday.

The nine jurors hearing the murder trial of New York businessman William Labrador had the day off. The chickens that roam this tiny island of Tortola had the run of the courtyard surrounded by a five-foot concrete wall capped with green wrought-iron bars.

High Court Justice Kenneth Benjamin was somewhere researching and writing his summary of the sensational six-week-old murder trial and the instructions he will give the jury Thursday on more than a half dozen legal principles.

Reasonable doubt, circumstantial evidence, alibis, what to make of lies — Benjamin's instructions on the law, coupled with evidence presented through 23 witnesses, will form the foundation for the jury's deliberations.

By this time Thursday, the 37-year-old defendant from New York may know whether he will be returning to Long Island with his mother and sister or back to Her Majesty's Prison at Balsam Ghut for perhaps the rest of his life.

Russell McMillen and Josephine McMillen, parents of murder victim Lois McMillen of Connecticut, planned to spend the day at the four-level, two-bedroom villa they own at Belmont Estate. The upscale neighborhood on Tortola's West End overlooks the Caribbean Sea and the smaller nearby island of Jost Van Dyke.

As she has almost every day when court was not in session, Barbara Labrador planned to visit her son at the hilltop prison some simply call "The Ghut" on the East End of the island. Tall and fit, the dark-haired defendant who shares his father's Filipino features has alternately worn gray, blue, beige and blue-pinstripe suits throughout the proceedings, which began April 2.

His mother bought one of the suits, size 44 long, at a shop in the busy business district located between the courthouse and the waterfront where cruise ships unload tourists by thousands each day. Shopping is one of the few escapes for Barbara Labrador from the stress of the long trial, the still-undecided future of her son and the constantly ringing telephone in her room at the Prospect Reef Hotel.

Each night after trial, Labrador takes and returns numerous phone calls from relatives and supporters from the U.S. Journalists interested in the latest news, but not interested enough to cover the day-to-day happenings, call with questions and requests for interviews.

Sometimes in the evenings, Labrador and other members of the defense team stroll down to the stone wall separating the 124-room resort and the blue-green waters of Sir Francis Drake Channel. There, producers from the CBS television newsmagazine "48 Hours" tape on-camera interviews for an upcoming documentary on the case.

At the hotel bar, The Scuttlebutt, journalists sometimes discuss the McMillen case over beer and conch fritters. They generally agreed that the case has all the elements of a great story: a beautiful setting, an attractive young victim from a rich family, four clean-cut American buddies held on weak evidence (three were released last week for lack of evidence), the lack of a clear motive, and a conman who offered testimony about a prison confession by Labrador.

Benjamin, a black-robed judge from Antigua, does not seem comfortable with the media presence or attention to the case. He expressed displeasure when CourtTV.com published the jury forewoman's name last month and when a local stringer for the Associated Press misstated a key piece of evidence.

When a "48 Hours" producer's cellphone rang inside the courtroom, Benjamin put the woman in the witness box and took her to task in front of the jury for violating his rule about ringing phones. No phones were permitted inside the courtroom from then on.

For visiting journalists, it can be unsettling to know that the judge is monitoring daily coverage of the trial so closely. Because reporters are human, have biases and make honest mistakes, American juries are told not to read or view coverage of their cases. But no such admonishment was made to the McMillen jury.

Each time it was obvious Benjamin was upset about coverage, reporters prayed silently that they would not be the ones to inadvertently cause a mistrial in this high-profile international case that took 14 months to get to trial.

The prison guards and police officers assigned to the courthouse also seem uneasy about all the attention. The atmosphere is now one of detente, but it was stressful for awhile when court officers believed journalists were trying to smuggle cameras and tape recorders into the courtroom.

Supporters of two of the accused — Labrador, who is still a defendant, and Alexander Benedetto of New York, who was released — wrote a letter to the authorities about a court officer who was rude and giving them a hard time. Just last week, Labrador's sister complained that someone in the courtroom observed a private investigator hired by the McMillen family take a handgun from the small of his back and place it in a carry bag.

It is fair to say that many who call themselves British Virgin Islanders will be happy when the case is over and journalists covering the trial are replaced by travel writers espousing the virtues of this 60-island grouping that markets itself as "Nature's Little Secrets."