Almost a year after Masumi Watanabe disappeared, the man charged with killing her yesterday visited the place where he claims she died accidentally and another Windward O'ahu location where the body allegedly was thrown in the ocean.

It was the second "site visit" in the murder trial of Kirk Lankford, allowing jurors firsthand looks at various locations the prosecution or defense consider significant to the case.

It was the defense's turn yesterday, and the jury was taken to 59-415 Makana Road, in the Pupukea Heights area of the North Shore, where defense attorney Donald Wilkerson pointed out two large rocks on the mauka side of the road. Lankford is expected to testify later this week that Watanabe, a 21-year-old visitor from Japan, died at that spot on the morning of April 12.

Wilkerson earlier told the jury that the young woman jumped out of Lankford's truck, struck her head on a roadside boulder and died.

Wilkerson said Lankford will testify that he accidentally hit Watanabe with his truck when she was walking on the side of Pupukea Road, injuring her slightly. She voluntarily got into his vehicle and Lankford tried to drive her to the home where she was staying, but couldn't communicate with the shy young woman because he spoke no Japanese, according to Wilkerson.

On Makana Road, she became agitated and jumped from the vehicle, fatally striking her head on the roadside rock, according to the defense.

Lankford was afraid that he would lose his job, so he put Watanabe's body in the back of the truck and continued his work duties as a pest control technician the rest of the day, according to the defense.

That night, after trying unsuccessfully to bury the body at a secluded location beside Kahana Bay, Lankford drove to another spot near the old Sugar Mill on Kamehameha Highway, close to Kualoa Beach Park.

Lankford is expected to testify that he carried Watanabe's body, enclosed in a plastic garbage bag, several hundred yards offshore by walking on the shallow reef well after midnight on April 13.

When he couldn't go any farther, Wilkerson told the jury, Lankford "let her go."

Watanabe's body has not been found.

The first site visit by jurors in the case, held March 14, ended at Kahana Bay, where two women were found digging in the ground, looking for Watanabe's body.

Yesterday's trip ended on almost the same note when one of the same women, Irene Theofanis, appeared at the shoreline site where Lankford said he disposed of Watanabe's body.

Theofanis, owner of a Punalu'u restaurant, lives in a house adjacent to the alleged disposal site.

Theofanis said she was as surprised to see parties from the jury trial yesterday as they were to see her.

She scoffed at Lankford's story that he walked so far offshore on the reef at night while carrying the body of a dead woman in a garbage bag.

"That would be very hard to do," she said.

She said wind and waves and tide would have brought Watanabe's body straight back to shore.

"She would have gotten back (to shore) before he did," said Theofanis.

The trial is in recess today. It resumes tomorrow with two defense witnesses expected to testify before Lankford takes the witness stand.

Prosecuting Attorney Peter Carlisle said the state may then present rebuttal witnesses to counter Lankford's version of events.

Closing arguments in the case are expected late this week or early next week.