Jenaro Torres, 58, was indicted by an O'ahu grand jury in 2005 on a charge of murdering Ruben Gallegos, a 19-year-old cashier at the base on May 1, 1992, when he was last seen.

Torres was convicted in federal court and served two years in prison for robbing the base of $80,000 in cash that had been given to Gallegos as part of his job.

Deputy Attorney General Susan Won told a Circuit Court jury during the trial's opening today that Torres killed the cashier to get rid of any witnesses to his crime. She also said Torres confessed to a fellow worker in California in 1997 that an accomplice to the robbery appeared to be going for a gun and Torres "took him out."

But Deputy Public Defender Ed Harada, Torres' lawyer, told the jury Gallegos willingly participated in the robbery and has been hiding. Harada said Gallegos is "missing, but not dead." Harada also said his client admitted to the California co-worker that he was involved in a robbery, but also embellished other matters and said things that weren't true.

Under state law, the recovery of a body is not necessary for a murder prosecution. There has been at least one other case here in which a defendant was convicted of murder even though the body was never found.

Torres' murder case was the first for the state attorney general's cold case unit, which was formed in 2005.