Sgt. Vincinte Jackson signaled his intent to kill 24 hours before carrying out the act, an Army prosecutor said Thursday in closing arguments for Jackson’s court-martial.

To defense attorneys, those words amounted to the first sign of a mind gone warped — one driven to kill by antidepressant medication and alcohol.

A panel of eight Fort Carson soldiers — five enlisted soldiers, three officers — began deliberations late Thursday morning after attorneys for both sides made their closing arguments.

Prosecutors charged Jackson in January with premeditated murder in the death of Spc. Brandy Fonteneaux. Before sending the jury to deliberate, the judge, Col. Timothy Grammel, told the panel to consider three lesser offenses if they can’t agree on the most serious offense. Those charges included involuntary manslaughter.

Capt. James Quinn, a prosecutor, stressed that Jackson thought about each action the night he killed Fontenaux — from walking inside her unlocked room to stabbing her dozens of times. He ended the attack by choking her as she lay lining on the ground, gasping.

“Even then, Sgt. Jackson doesn’t give her that chance to live,” Quinn said.

“In that moment, if for no other, he had a premeditated design to kill,” he added.

Capt. Jeremy Horn, a defense attorney, pleaded with the panel to find him guilty of involuntary manslaughter, acknowledging that “Sgt. Jackson knows he’s not getting away scot-free from this.”

His only decision that night was to drink “more (alcohol) than he’d ever drunk before” while taking Celexa — a combination that apparently warped his mind into a hallucinogenic state, Horn said.

“The rational, conscious part of his brain wasn’t in control,” Horn said.

Fort Carson soldiers shield Sgt. Vicinte Jackson from cameras as he’s led into court Thursday, December 13, 2012 for closing arguments in the court-martial in which he is charged with premeditated murder in the death of Spc. Brandy Fonteneaux. Photo by MARK REIS, THE GAZETTE