Victor Gantt apologized on Wednesday to everyone involved in his capital murder case, even the jury which will recommend whether he deserves the death penalty.

“If there was a day ever that I could take back and have a second chance to relive it, it would be the day May 2, 1011. On that day not only did I do the most sinful and tragic thing... There is absolutely no excuse for what I done nor will I try to make any,” he said while reading from a prepared statement in the Butler County courtroom.

“What I done was unexcusable, not to mention selfish, devilish and just flat out wrong,” he added. “All I can do now is take the punishment that is in store for me, as a result of my actions.”

The defense rested its case in the penalty phase of the trial and the jury will begin deliberating on Thursday.

Friends and family testified earlier Gantt was high on drugs and not himself in the days leading up to the day he killed Middletown resident Leroy Jones with an ax.

The jury of six men and six women last week found Gantt guilty of aggravated murder, aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery and tampering with evidence and are now charged with recommending a sentence. The death penalty is one option.

Gantt, 26, smashed through a French door with an ax at the home of the 75-year-old Jones last May, struck him six times in the head and then trashed the house. After he relaxed on Jones’ bed and watched a porn movie he stole from an acquaintance earlier that morning, Gantt tried to burn the house down to cover his crime. All Gantt took from the house was $150 in pocket change.

Several family members testified Gantt called them after the crime to tell them. Kenny Murphy, who admits he used to smoke marijuana with his baby brother, told the jury he didn’t believe Gantt when he said he thought he killed a man.

“He said I just did something really crazy...,” he said. “I didn’t mean to do it.”

His half sister, Sarah Vincent, who with her husband got custody of Gantt in 2000, said she received a couple calls from Gantt on May 2 and he sounded “bizarre.” It appears Gantt might have gone back to the scene of the crime, because in one call she said he told her, “Praise God, praise God the house is still there, it didn’t happen.”

On Tuesday almost all the testimony centered on Gantt’s father, Philip Gantt, Sr., who was described as a tyrannical and brutal man.

When Prosecutor Mike Gmoser was questioning Gantt’s friend Patrick Tallon, he kept asking him about the father and the relationship he had with the son. An obviously irritated Tallon shot back with “what does all this have to do with his father?” Gmoser replied, “Good question, excellent question, but we’ll leave for others.”

Psychologist Bobbie Hopes was expected to be the final witness Wednesday and she was in the courtroom hallway, but the defense never called her to testify.