After 9 years, Times Square hotel murder case headed to jury

NEW YORK — A nearly decade-old murder case involving a prostitute’s death in a shabby Times Square hotel was headed toward the jury room Tuesday, after being drawn out by debate over the validity of bite-mark evidence.

Prosecutors say Dean, a convicted sex offender wanted in two states, brutally killed Yitref, 33, a onetime design student turned crack-addicted streetwalker whose body was found shoved under a bed in his hotel room after he checked out.

Dean admitted he punched and choked Yitref but denied killing her, saying he blacked out from exertion while defending himself after she and her pimp attacked him and tried to steal his bag.

Dean, 44, came to New York a few weeks before Yitref’s death, wanted on charges of stealing a woman’s car and draining her bank account in Tennessee and failing to comply with a sex offender registry law in Alabama.

For years, prosecutors planned to include a controversial piece of evidence: a forensic comparison between Dean’s teeth and a bite mark found on Yitref’s body.