MAYERSVILLE – Jurors deadlocked Thursday night in the trial of a man charged with murder in the 2004 shooting death of a Mayersville woman.

Kenny Hunt, 31, was accused of the revenge killing of Tabitha Walker, who was 32, while she was driving from her job at a nightclub to her mother’s home near Grace.

The slaying occurred on a roadside between about 12:15 a.m. and 12:26 a.m. on Feb. 22, 2004.

Jurors deliberated for about 6 1/2 hours, reporting their failure to agree to Issaquena County Circuit Court Judge Isadore Patrick about 8:30 p.m. Seven of 12 jurors reportedly favored a guilty verdict.

Patrick declared a mistrial. The charge against Hunt remains pending and prosecutors may request a new trial in the case or let it drop. The district attorney’s office has not yet made a decision on whether to do so, Assistant District Attorney John Bullard said this morning.

Hunt was charged about six or seven months after Walker’s death. Witnesses testified the defendant had concocted an alibi, but he testified he had nothing to do with Walker’s death.

Assistant District Attorney Mike Bonner repeated in his closing argument Thursday that the investigation hinged on a statement by Hunt’s half-brother, Troy Piggs.

Initially Piggs lied to cover for Hunt, Bonner said. Troubled by his conscience, however, he recanted and told an investigator that Hunt had admitted killing Walker, Bonner said.

&#8220But for that confession, he would’ve gotten away with murder,” Bonner said.

Piggs’ statement in hand, investigators unraveled the case they presented in the trial, only the second homicide prosecution in Issaquena County in more than 30 years.

Hunt’s friend, Ricky Jacobs, also gave a statement attempting to cover for Hunt, but later, after Hunt was arrested, recanted. He testified Wednesday.

Another prosecution witness was Christopher Hunt, nephew of the defendant and also facing a murder charge. The plan was to create the impression that the defendant was not in Mayersville the night Walker was killed, Bonner said. Christopher Hunt testified that he was picked up from high school and taken to Jackson by Kenny Hunt the Friday before Walker was killed and that on their return trip to Mayersville Sunday Kenny Hunt told him to tell anyone who asked that they were at Mardi Gras in New Orleans when the killing occurred.

Under questioning from his attorneys, Michael Winfield and Paul Winfield of Vicksburg, Kenny Hunt testified he picked his nephew up from school the Friday before Walker was killed, dropped his nephew off in Jackson and went to Mardi Gras in New Orleans that night. He said he returned to Jackson by noon the next day, spent all that day and part of that night doing engine work on his 1987 Toyota Supra.

During Bonner’s closing argument he suggested that Kenny Hunt’s account of that weekend seemed overfull.

&#8220When does he sleep?” Bonner asked the jury.

The state also said Hunt had traded cell phones with another person to attempt to affirm his alibi.

The defendant and victim had argued after she saw him displaying a videotape he had secretly made of himself and the victim’s sister. The victim pulled a gun on him in front of his friends, testimony indicated. Bonner told jurors that in revenge, Hunt planned and carried out the ambush.