AUBURN – Only Thomas Dyer and Gary Gauthier Jr. know whether they’re guilty of killing and burying two men near abandoned railroad tracks in Lewiston on a cool September night last year.

Exactly who did what to whom that night are questions for the jury to sort out, relying on testimony, bloodstained clothes, DNA swabs and a bloody baseball bat. That jury, charged with deciding the case, spent three hours Friday deliberating before Androscoggin County Superior Court Justice Thomas E. Delahanty II sent them home for the weekend. They are due back in court at 8:30 a.m. Monday.

Dyer, 21, and Gauthier, 25, both of Auburn, are charged with murdering John Graffam, 30 and James Vining, 43, both formerly of Auburn, whose bodies were found more than a month later by hunters. The jury was given the option of a lesser charge of manslaughter for each death.

During closing arguments Friday morning, prosecutors and both defense attorneys offered jurors three versions of what they believe happened the night of Sept. 23, 2005.

Dyer and Gauthier lured the two men deep into the woods off Foss Road late that night, Assistant Attorney General Fernand LaRochelle told the jury. One of them was carrying a baseball bat.

“What do you think was on their minds?” he said.

Graffam and Vining were “viciously” beaten. Dyer and Gauthier “were in the very thick of it during this assault.” No one stood on the sidelines, he said.

The defendants’ bloodstained clothes found buried in Pownal link them to the dead men.

Each of the defendants took the wallet of one of the victims to hinder in their identification, then buried the bodies, LaRochelle said. They covered up and destroyed evidence. They even went back to the scene later and reburied one of their victims, he said. They remained close friends afterward, “concocting” their stories into an “identical lie.”

“Both of these defendants are guilty of murder,” he said. It doesn’t matter whether one of them served as an accomplice to the other.

Peter Rodway, Dyer’s attorney, disagreed.

His client may have been an accomplice, but he was an unwilling one, Rodway told the jury.

Gauthier put a knife to Dyer’s throat and threatened to kill him if he didn’t join in, Rodway reminded the jury of his client’s testimony a day earlier. If they believe him, they have to excuse him from criminal charges, Rodway said.

DNA shows that Gauthier was wearing the clothes that show he played a major role in the killings, Rodway said.

Not so, Robert Ruffner, Gauthier’s attorney told the jury.

The blood spatter pattern left on the back of a Red Sox Jersey worn by Gauthier shows he must have been standing apart from Dyer when he was swinging the bloody bat. A forensic expert who testified confirmed that, Ruffner said.

Dyer’s story about what happened was full of inconsistencies. What’s more, Ruffner said, it’s not supported by the physical evidence.

Dyer testified that Gauthier had been wearing two shirts that night. But the location of the bloodstains don’t support that, he said.

“Tommy’s testimony is incredible. It is unbelievable.”

The two defense attorneys argued over which of their clients wore a pair of blue jeans soaked with Vining’s blood in a pattern that suggests the wearer was standing close and facing him during a beating. Although Gauthier’s DNA showed up on the pants, Ruffner pointed out that the jeans belonged to his client, but that Dyer had admitted to police he had worn them that night.

What’s more, Ruffner said, there’s no physical evidence proving that Gauthier was present when Graffam was killed.

“Was he there? We don’t know.”

Each defense attorney sought to convince the jury that the other defendant assumed the role of leader in the assaults.

The jury was given all of the evidence, including a wardrobe of bloodstained clothes and swabs from various bottles and cans of beer plus vodka bottles.

They also can review a video of Dyer leading police to the scene and describing what happened that night along with testimony from the trial.

Outside the courthouse, Liane Micks, Graffam’s mother, said she was optimistic both defendants would be convicted. “I think they’re both guilty,” she said.