DEDHAM -- Jury deliberations will resume this morning in the trial of an inmate charged with killing an elderly Foxboro woman while she walked through a Walpole park in 1998.

A Dedham Superior Court jury began deliberating Tuesday after hearing closing arguments in the case against Martin G. Guy.

The jury was sent home about 4 p.m., and will reconvene about 9 this morning, said David Traub, spokesman for Norfolk County District Attorney William Keating.

Guy is on trial for the Dec. 1, 1998, murder of 75-year-old Irene Kennedy.

Kennedy was bitten, beaten, strangled and stabbed 32 times in Walpole's Bird Park, where she went for a walk with her husband, Thomas. Guy denies killing Irene Kennedy. However, prosecutors say saliva found on her matched his DNA.

Guy is currently in prison for life in the 1999 murder of Christopher Payne, who lived in the same Norwood rooming house with Guy.

Edmund Burke of Walpole was arrested shortly after the murder, and spent 41 days in jail before DNA evidence showed he was not the killer.

The charge against him eventually was dropped, and he is suing the state for wrongful arrest.

MICHAEL GELBWASSER can be reached at 508-236-0372 or at mgelbwasser@thesunchronicle.com.