OAKLAND, Calif. -- With the clock winding down on closing arguments, defense attorney William Du Bois Monday once again portrayed missing East Bay mother Nina Reiser as a woman on the run, not the victim of a heinous murder.

Oakland computer expert Hans Reiser is on the trial for his estranged wife's murder, but Nina's body has never been found.

Du Bois told the jurors that Nina Reiser could easily escape the Bay Area and run off to her native Russia where her two young children were currently living with her mother.

"This is not the case of a hometown gal who really has never left the confines of the area," the defense attorney said. "We have someone who has contacts across the world…She's as comfortable in Europe as she is here."

Du Bois also tried to brush aside the prosecution closing statements that Nina would never abandon her children. Nina's mother and son both testified that they haven't had any contact with Nina since she disappeared and prosecutor Paul Hora put on the witness stand many witnesses who testified that Nina was too good of a mother to ever leave her two children.

But Du Bois said, "I submit that the mantra that she would never leave her children does not apply" because they wound up living with Nina's mother in St. Petersburg, Russia, so at least they're in the care of her family.

Du Bois also told jurors not to be influenced by Hans Reiser's strange behavior. There was never a history of domestic violence involving the couple and he called Hans' behavior "not normal."

"He is not normal," Du Bois told the jurors. "He is not normal -- Hans you are not normal."

Hora told jurors in his closing argument last week that proving that Nina is dead is one of his three essential tasks in Hans Reiser's trial, along with proving that Hans killed her and that it was murder.

Nina Reiser, who was 31 when she disappeared after dropping off her children at Hans' house in the Oakland hills, met Hans in Russia, where she was trained as a physician and where he often spent time doing business for his computer file system company.

They married in 1999, but she filed for divorce and separated from him in 2004. Although Nina was awarded legal custody of their children, Hans had visitation rights.

Nina's body has never been found, but Hora says that circumstantial evidence as well as blood and DNA evidence proves that Hans killed her.

Hans Reiser has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

Hora has asked jurors to convict Reiser of either first- or second-degree murder but DuBois said he should be acquitted.

Jurors are expected to begin deliberating Reiser's fate either late Monday or Tuesday morning.