The trial of a man accused of killing a White Plains mother in the Galleria Mall parking lot because she was white wrapped Monday with closing arguments.

Convicted sex offender Phillip Grant?s attorneys told the jury that Grant didn?t understand his rights at the time he made a videotaped confession and admitted to stabbing to death Connie Russo-Carriero, 56, in a shopping mall parking lot. Grant?s lawyers also argued that DNA evidence found on his clothes and the knife used to stab Russo-Carriero place him at the scene but don?t prove Grant, 44, was the killer. Grant had voluntarily made a videotaped confession and admitted to stabbing Russo-Carriero because she was white and he wanted to start a race war.

Prosecutors countered that the case is an open and shut one. They told the jury that witnesses saw Grant in the parking lot, police found her DNA on his clothes and that Grant willingly confessed.

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