Statements like that, Major Stelle said in his closing remarks, “demonstrate a clear memory of what happened and consciousness of guilt.” He said that the “heinous, brutal, methodical, despicable” nature of the crimes, especially the murder of small children, elevated the case to death-penalty significance.

But some of the most damning evidence, including the “real bad” quote, came from soldiers who Ms. Scanlan suggested in her final remarks were not particularly believable. Two men who reported hearing Sergeant Bales make incriminating comments, including Corporal Godwin, also admitted drinking with him earlier in the evening on the base, in violation of Army rules, and testified under immunity from prosecution. Ms. Scanlan urged Colonel Deneke to evaluate that testimony carefully.

“They drank a ton and they were all drunk,” she said.

A spokeswoman for the Bales family, Stephanie Tandberg, the sergeant’s sister-in-law, read a statement urging people who have followed the case in the news not to “rush to judgment.”

“We want to make sure this American soldier, citizen, husband and father has a fair trial with the due process that is guaranteed to all Americans,” she said. “We in Bob’s family are proud to stand by him.”

A claim before the hearings by another lawyer for Sergeant Bale, John Henry Browne, that his client suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, went largely unexplored in the proceeding, and Ms. Scanlan, in comments to reporters after Tuesday’s adjournment, said the defense was still investigating those issues. Before the hearings began, she entered into the record a formal objection that the defense had been given insufficient time to prepare.

Major Stelle said the evidence revealed a man who knew exactly what he was doing when he left the base intent on mayhem. Eyewitnesses and victims who testified through a video link from Afghanistan over the weekend, in extraordinary night sessions here at the base where Sergeant Bales was stationed, about an hour south of Seattle, described a figure in the dark, illuminating his victims with a bright light before shooting them.

Ms. Scanlan said the prosecution’s portrait of a steely-cool killer conflicted with the strange and anything-but-standard item of clothing that witnesses said Sergeant Bales was wearing when he returned to the base early on the morning of March 11: a cape.

“Why in the world is somebody who is supposedly so lucid wearing a cape?” she said.