The image of mixed martial arts champion Stan Stanisclasse’s bloody, lifeless body on the floor of his Palm Beach Shores apartment had been on a projector screen at least twice this week before Palm Beach County Assistant State Attorney Reid Scott showed it to jurors again during closing arguments of Darrell Telisme’s first-degree murder trial.

Still, there was something about seeing her son that way, at that moment, that caused Stanisclasse’s mother to let out a stunned, pained wail from her seat in the courtroom gallery. Her mouth stayed open, tears streaming down her face as those with her led her from the courtroom. As the other held her up by her arms, she stumbled through the double doors.

From his seat at the defense table, Telisme, an amateur boxer who said he considered Stanisclasse more of a brother than a friend, stared ahead at the jurors who will on Friday begin deciding whether he was a murderer or a scared man forced to shoot in self-defense.

"He punched me in my mouth, and I was in fear for my life," Telisme told jurors Thursday, testifying in his own defense. "I reached for my firearm and swung at him with it."

"And it went off?" defense attorney Scott Skier asked.

"Yes, sir," he said.

The exchange marked what was easily the smoothest part of Telisme’s time on the stand. More often he appeared flummoxed, hesitant and sometimes unresponsive.

But through it all Telisme seemed certain of two things — that he shot the 23-year-old Stanisclasse in self-defense and, as he told jurors over and over, everything that he told detectives about the shooting were statements made "under duress."

Unfortunately for him, this included even some statements that supported the version of events that Skier, his own attorney, had recounted to jurors at the start of the trial.

Skier told jurors that Telisme and Stanisclasse fought three times on that night before Thanksgiving in 2015, when they, Dexter Dunbar and a group of other fighters who had all met at Elite Boxing in suburban West Palm Beach went out to celebrate the upcoming holiday.

Skier said Stanisclasse had bested the amateur Telisme in their first fight of the night and continued pummeling him a second time before the third fight outside Stanisclasse’s apartment prompted Telisme to shoot, but Telisme told the jury there was only one fight.

This difference was not lost on Assistant State Attorney Reid Scott, who on cross-examination Thursday called Telisme a liar outright.

Telisme said he believed the first altercation, outside a downtown West Palm Beach pizza parlor, was a "wrestling match." And they didn’t fight outside a nearby nightclub later that night either, although he said by then he had drunk four beers and two Long Island iced teas.

But if a punch to the mouth when Telisme went to retrieve his Playstation from Stanisclasse marked the first punch Stanisclasse landed that night, Scott asked, then why was Stanisclasse’s hand already bandaged with toilet paper when Telisme shot him immediately afterward?

"Either you were lying to the detectives then, or you’re lying to the jury now," Scott said.

"I was under duress," Telisme repeated for about the twelfth time in response to the statement he made after the shooting.

"I felt like, I was being rushed and being forced to answer certain questions. To me everything, to me, was going fast," Telisme had told jurors as Skier questioned him earlier.

Stanisclasse, 23, had a professional record of 9-0, with eight knockouts, at the time of his death. Whereas Telisme was a boxer, Stanisclasse was also trained in both wrestling and mixed martial arts.

The dispute between the two friends that night allegedly arose over which was the better fighter. According to prosecutors, Telisme was telling the professional fighter that he could beat him up. But Telisme on the witness stand said it was Stanisclasse making the taunts, adding that Stanisclasse’s skill as a fighter made him "someone you don’t want to play with."

He’s telling you that story here today because that’s what convenient for him," Assistant State Attorney Kristen Grimes told jurors in closing arguments.

Skier rejected those claims, attributing Telisme’s testimony to an unsophisticated thought process that shouldn’t take jurors away from the fact that he has consistently said he was in fear for his life.

Circuit Judge Jeffrey Colbath sent jurors home for the night after closing arguments Thursday, asking them to come back early Friday to begin deliberating the case.