1974 farmhouse slaying jury can't decide on verdict
| Ottumwa, Iowa
Jurors have told a judge that they're deadlocked at the trial of a man charged with first-degree murder in the 1974 slaying of a 17-year-old girl at an Iowa聽farmhouse.
After learning of the disagreement, Judge Richard Meadows ordered the jury Tuesday to continue deliberating in the case against 67-year-old Robert "Gene" Pilcher. Jurors went home hours later and were expected to resume deliberations Wednesday.
Prosecutors accuse Pilcher of fatally shooting Mary Jayne Jones at his cousin's farmhouse while his cousin was away. Authorities arrested Pilcher in 2012 after tests linked his DNA to semen stains on a blanket that was under Jones' body.
Pilcher says he's innocent. He says the semen came from a previous sexual encounter, and prosecutors offered little other direct evidence linking him to the death.
