LAS VEGAS — After 23 days of testimony from 66 witnesses, the prosecution in the so-called Black Widow murder trial rested its case Tuesday against Margaret Rudin, a one-time socialite accused of killing her fifth husband.

It was none too soon for the trial's frustrated judge.

"Hopefully we're on track. Hopefully the case will be submitted to you soon," sighed Judge Joseph Bonaventure to the jury after prosecutors announced the end of their case. Bonaventure has not disguised his disgust with the trial's slow pace. Originally slated to last just over a month, the trial is now expected to stretch 10 weeks, largely because of legal stumbles and ill preparation by Rudin's defense.

Early in the case, Rudin, 57, sought a mistrial because of defense lawyer Michael Amador's admittedly substandard performance. The motion was denied, but since then Amador's co-counsel, Tom Pitaro and John Momot, have taken a larger role in the defense. The three lawyers will begin putting on evidence April 16 after a long Easter weekend designed to give them time to ready their case.

Prosecutors contend that Rudin shot her philandering husband in December 1994 to get at his $11 million fortune and then had her own paramour, Yehuda Sharon, and her nephew help dismember and burn the body. Rudin's remains were found in a desert fire pit in January 1995. Two years later, as a grand jury prepared to indict Margaret Rudin for the murder, she fled Las Vegas. After stints in Mexico, Illinois and Arizona, she was finally captured in Massachusetts in 1999.

The defense maintains that Ron Rudin made many enemies with his shady business dealings and that Margaret Rudin left the city only because she feared for her own safety.

Before court recessed, jurors heard about a stash of incriminating evidence Rudin sent to a confidante while on the lam. The boxes shipped to friend Roma Scott Jones in 1999 included gifts for Rudin's grandchildren and family photographs, but also items related to troubles with her husband, including a private investigator's report documenting a liaison with his mistress, Las Vegas police detective James Vaccaro testified.

"These items were clearly Mrs. Rudin's possessions," he said.

The detective read jurors the private investigator's report, labeled "private and confidential," which detailed a meeting between Rudin and his lover, Sue Lyles, less than a month before Rudin's disappearance.

The boxes also contained a black wallet belonging to Ron Rudin as well as his address book and bloody handkerchiefs, Vaccaro said. During the investigation, authorities were searching for a sample of Ron Rudin's DNA to compare with blood stains found on the couple's walls. They ultimately matched the blood spots to DNA from another handkerchief in the house.

Vaccaro also showed jurors receipts for a new rug and plumbing services Rudin purchased a few weeks after her husband's death. A handyman testified earlier that he removed a smelly rug with a reddish stain from Rudin's bedroom and observed blood gurgling in Rudin's tub in January 1995. The boxes also contained a cancelled check for the handyman's work.

The detective also displayed the tools of Rudin's fugitive life which police found in her Massachusetts apartment. Vaccaro, a large mustachioed man, showed jurors several fake IDs, a book entitled "How to Obtain a Second Citizenship and Passport, and Why You Want To," and two silky, brown shoulder-length wigs which he arranged on his fists and waved before jurors.

He also testified that: