Jurors in the case of a convicted child rapist accused of molesting a 3-year-old girl last year were unable to reach a unanimous decision in Warren County Circuit Court Tuesday, and the case will be retried in 2011.

Thomas Tubbs, 56, 906 National St., will remain out of jail on a $100,000 bond, and attorneys will confer to set a new trial date, presiding Judge Isadore Patrick said.

The jury of six men and six women began their deliberations around 5:35 p.m. Tuesday and returned to the courtroom at 7:30, saying there was no hope of coming to a unanimous decision. A note they sent to Patrick, which was placed in the court file, indicated they were split 10-2 to convict.

Tubbs pleaded guilty in 1993 to raping a 10-year-old girl and served about 10 years of a 25-year sentence. The previous conviction was allowed into evidence in this week’s trial only to show motive, intent or challenge Tubbs’ defense that his contact with the child had been the result of “mistake or accident.”

A jury spokesman said jurors had considered all the evidence and three separate votes had been taken, but no progress toward a unanimous decision had been made in the last hour of their deliberations.

“It happens that different minds see things differently,” Patrick said, and thanked them for their service.

District Attorney Ricky Smith said the family of the child, who testified Monday that Tubbs had molested her, would be very disappointed the child would have to go through another trial.

“It’s very unfortunate the jury could not reach a decision,” said Smith. “But we definitely intend to retry the defendant.”

“It’s hard to say what the motivating factor is with juries,” said Louis Field, Tubbs’ attorney. “People sometimes just don’t see eye to eye.” He spoke briefly with Tubbs after the jury was dismissed.

Tubbs was arrested Dec. 21 and charged with molesting the child after she told her mother several days earlier that he had touched her, and pointed to her private parts when asked where on her body.

The mother took the child to the hospital, where an examination revealed no physical marks of molestation.

A later DNA test showed, however, that a sample from Tubbs was an identical match to DNA found in the child’s underwear.

Earlier Tuesday, Kathryn Moyse, an expert witness in the field of forensic DNA analysis who works for Scales Biological Laboratory in Brandon, told the court that so much male DNA had been found in the child’s underwear, it had to be diluted 10 times to properly conduct the test.

The DNA found was an identical match to a sample taken from Tubbs, but could also be a match with certain male relatives, Moyse said. In addition, it matched one individual in a randomly created database of about 8,000 people.

She said the quantity of DNA found was not consistent with casual contact or transfer from one item of clothing to another, or from random skin cells or hair, but would have had to come from some body fluid.

Field, however, raised questions about how the child’s articles of clothing had been stored, as well as how the underwear and Tubbs’ DNA swab were packaged before being sent for testing.

Several defense witnesses also testified that they were present in the home where the molestation was reported to have occurred and saw nothing unusual.

Smith countered that none of them said they were in the room with Tubbs and the child, and that Tubbs’ statements to police had been inconsistent and implausible.