LAS VEGAS — After five tumultuous days of deliberations, a jury Wednesday rejected conspiracy theories and charges of police misconduct and convicted so-called Black Widow Margaret Rudin of murdering her millionaire fifth husband.

The panel of seven women and five men weighed evidence for nearly 28 hours before finding Rudin guilty of first-degree murder and illegal wiretapping. She faces life in prison when sentenced June 8.

The 57-year-old grandmother showed no reaction as the foreman, a burly special education teacher named Ronald Vest, glared at her across a rapt courtroom, paused dramatically and then confidently announced, "We find the defendant guilty."

Jury foreman Ronald Vest

The first-degree murder conviction surprised many court observers since the foreman wrote a note to the judge Tuesday saying the panel was split 11 to 1 on a lesser count than murder, an accessory charge that carried only five years in prison.

The juror — #11 — who had held out for acquittal until changing her mind Wednesday morning clutched a tissue as she entered the court and sobbed throughout the verdict. When asked during the jury poll if what the foreman had read was indeed her verdict, she waited a moment before replying softly, "Yes." The foreman later said the jury had done a trial run of the poll in the deliberating room to ensure she would not renege on her guilty vote.

Her ambivalence, however, was clear. As Judge Joseph Bonaventure thanked the panel for its ten weeks of work on the case, the middle-aged nurse and mother of three pushed her long brown bangs from her tear-stained face and mouthed to Rudin, "I'm sorry."

The verdict came after acrimonious and uniquely public deliberations in which the lone holdout was repeatedly accused of misconduct. She admitted phoning an alternate to discuss the case, and was further accused of lying during jury selection and refusing to deliberate. Defense attorney Michael Amador, who seemed stunned by the decision, wondered if the judge and other jurors had "brow-beaten" juror #11 into convicting.

But foreman Vest denied "twisting her arm."

"We didn't bribe her or threaten her," he said. "She came to this on her own."

For the other 11, Vest said, Rudin's guilt was clear early on. He described the defense's case as "a waste of time, Amador as "bordering on incompetent," and the guilty verdict as "a slam dunk with a stepladder."

"The evidence was overwhelming, we couldn't get away from it," the Navy veteran said.

Killing of a Millionaire

With their verdict, the jury endorsed the prosecution's theory that Rudin, frustrated with her husband's philandering and fearful that he would divorce her, killed the real estate developer to get at his $11 million fortune.

Ron Rudin's bullet-ridden skull and charred bones were discovered in a remote desert fire pit in 1995, a month after his employees reported him missing. Prosecutors said Rudin shot him as he slept in the couple's bedroom and then disposed of his body with help from her lover, a holy oil salesman named Yehuda Sharon.

Although much of the state's case was expert testimony about blood stains found in the Rudins' residence, prosecutors Gary Guymon and Chris Owens concentrated in closing arguments on bits and pieces of circumstantial evidence that pointed to Rudin.

According to witnesses, Rudin was slow to contact police about his disappearance and expressed little worry about his absence even as she rifled through his financial papers in search of his will.

"Margaret Rudin did not want to find Ron Rudin. She wanted to find his money," Guymon told the jury during his closing arguments.

In the dramatic highpoint of the testimony, Rudin's own sister, Dona Cantrell-Robinson, took the stand for the prosecution and told jurors her older sister was more concerned with her husband's assets than his welfare in the days after he vanished. A pair of police detectives testified Rudin asked no questions and showed no emotion when told he had been murdered.

And a handyman recounted removing red-stained, foul-smelling carpet from the master bedroom and redecorating the room as a home office. Prosecutors also told jurors of the more than two years Rudin spent on the run from the murder charges, calling witnesses from her fugitive days in Arizona and Massachusetts where she lived under assumed names. It was during this time the television show 'America's Most Wanted' dubbed her the Black Widow.

Prosecutor Gary Guymon

Difficult Deliberations

The jury began deliberating Thursday after hearing 13 hours of closing arguments, an experience Vest described as "grueling."

The jury foreman described how the panel came up with 97 pieces of evidence pointing toward the defendant's guilt and only five pointing away from her. Among the evidence Vest said jurors found especially compelling was the murder weapon. Rudin was killed by a handgun with a silencer that he had reported missing six years before the crime. At that time, he suspected his wife had taken it, and Vest said the jurors made a list of people who had access to the gun, and of them only Sharon, who was granted immunity, and Rudin were logical suspects.

Vest said he was also convinced by a directive Ron Rudin had placed in his will, ordering his beneficiaries to take "extraordinary steps" to investigate his death if he was killed violently and to cut whoever committed the murder out of his will. Ron Rudin's lawyer testified the millionaire thought his wife was "vicious and violent" and might try to kill him.

The jury found unbelievable the defense theory that the trustees of Ron Rudin's estate had him killed because they stood to gain financially from his death and were insiders in his shady land deals. Rudin's lawyers suggested the police ignored solid leads pointing away from Margaret Rudin and were ultimately in cahoots with Rudin's trustees.

"I didn't buy any of it. I don't think any of us bought any of the defense case," Vest said, adding that even juror #11 never claimed that Rudin was innocent, just that the state hadn't proven its case.

The foreman said the "mountain of evidence" had 11 of the jurors ready to convict as early as Thursday, but "one person from the beginning did not see it that way."

He said juror #11 seemed so bent on acquitting Rudin that he began to wonder if she had been bribed or threatened or simply wanted attention. He confronted her about his suspicions, and she denied them, Vest said.

"For whatever reason, she just sympathized with Margaret," he said.

Over the weekend, juror #11 phoned an alternate to vent her frustration at the deliberations. The alternate informed Bonaventure, who spoke with the woman and decided to leave her on the jury. The prosecution wanted her off, and prosecutor Owens charged that had she not been the lone holdout the judge would have dismissed her "in three seconds."

Her problems continued Tuesday when Vest wrote two letters to the judge asking that she be thrown off for failing to deliberate, being overemotional and concealing a domestic violence incident from the court which the foreman feared had made her "bitter" toward authorities. Again Bonaventure left her on the jury, but many observers felt a hung jury was likely.

Vest said he considered walking out of the jury room Tuesday night and telling the bailiff the jury was hung. But Vest, a high school teacher who works with students with behavioral problems, said, "I don't give up that easily."

His patience paid off on Wednesday morning. Juror #11 finally budged.

"There was a little bit of swearing. It was fast and furious but we hashed it out," Vest said of the last flurry of deliberations.

Vest, who wore cowboy boots with golden tips and donned a tie with a gold 'Teachers Rule' pin before doing interviews after the verdict, said he believed he was uniquely qualified to broker a deal and that some guiding force led him to remain on the jury and be the foreman. He recounted a time in March when he tried to get off the jury to return to his students, who were having difficulty getting along without him. He said they had gone through "six substitutes, three of which said they would never come back and one who just sat at the desk shaking like he was scared." The principal wanted Vest back in the classroom. But the judge refused, and "my principal said, Well, maybe there's some reason why you need to be on this jury."

Defense Woes

After the verdict, Amador sat in the courthouse hallway, looking dejected as one of his three ex-wives tried to comfort him.

"They make me sick," he said of the prosecutors. "I don't know how it is that right-thinking people can find someone guilty with no evidence."

He has always claimed that the key to his client's innocence lay in boxes of complicated financial records, but from the start, the lawyer had difficulty presenting his case.

Defense attorney Michael Amador

After a long, rambling opening and several poor cross-examinations, Amador and Rudin asked Judge Joseph Bonaventure for a mistrial because of his substandard representation. The judge refused, but Amador subsequently took a more marginal role in the defense. Co-counsel Tom Pitaro convinced his good friend and noted defense attorney John Momot to join the team, and the pair took the lead role.

Amador and his stumbles, however, remained center stage to the end. He ignored Bonaventure's instruction to give a short closing on the financial records and leave the rest for Pitaro's argument. The judge called him a liar with no personal integrity, and then refused to allow Amador to speak to him directly. He also demanded that the lawyer whisper his communications through Pitaro.

Amador continued his quest until minutes before the verdict was reached, submitting a memo to the judge that alleging another juror had acted inappropriately.

Bonaventure made his opinion of Amador clear after the verdict without uttering a single word against him. He thanked at length the prosecutors, Momot and Pitaro, but said nothing of Amador.

After the verdict, Rudin's daughter, Kristina Mason, a constant at the courthouse since the close of the case, stood in the hallway crying.

"I'm so disappointed," she said.