There was no jury war this time when Jennifer Ann Dalton went on trial for murder.

Acquitted of first-degree murder in May, Dalton was convicted Thursday of second-degree murder in the shooting death of her husband, Craig, two years ago in the garage of her Elk Grove home.

And it took the six-man, six-woman Sacramento Superior Court jury less than two days to come back with the guilty verdict, which could send Dalton to prison for 40 years to the rest of her life.

"She's a cold-hearted psychopath," Bruce Turner, the older brother of the murder victim, said in an interview after the verdict. "She is truly a demented person."

The verdict came in a retrial after a jury earlier this year acquitted Dalton, 42, of first-degree murder charges in the July 13, 2009, killing. The first panel, after an acrimonious nine days of deliberations and allegations of juror misconduct, failed to reach a verdict on the lesser-included second-degree charge.

Dalton's shooting of her husband came at the tumultuous conclusion to a three-year marriage that saw the couple living more apart than together.

They fought constantly over money, and Jennifer Dalton was distraught toward the end of their relationship over the impending foreclosure of her home on Rainbow Falls Way. The two attacked each other frequently by bragging of their sexual exploits outside the marriage, and their barbed remarks to each other made their way into the testimony and were displayed in text messages flashed on the courtroom projector.

Jennifer Dalton testified she killed her husband in self-defense, that he shoved her into a wall and suggested he might kill her. But it was Dalton who had the gun at the time of the confrontation. She said she had retrieved it from a closet beforehand because she thought somebody was breaking into her house.

Prosecutors filed the case as first-degree murder with the special-circumstance allegation that she lured him over to her house to kill him.

Jurors quickly departed the courthouse after the verdict and declined comment.

Deputy District Attorney Chris Ore said he still believes it was a first-degree case. Ore branded Dalton's self-defense claim as unbelievable.

"I think she got herself caught in various lies," he said.

Judge Helena R. Gweon scheduled Dalton's sentencing for Oct. 14.

Defense attorney Linda Parisi said she was "disappointed" and "surprised" by the verdict.

"In light of all the information on what an emotionally charged incident it was ... I really believed the jury would understand how fearful she was," Parisi said. "Given the emotionally charged atmosphere, it never should have been more than a manslaughter."

A rift within the jury in the first trial prompted Judge Timothy Frawley to hold up the recording of the verdict for five days.

Frawley finally allowed it to go through after conducting an investigation that concluded there was no actionable jury misconduct.

Donna Justice, a juror in the first trial, was the subject of the misconduct allegations. Other jurors on the panel said she refused to deliberate in good faith and created a volatile atmosphere in the jury room.

Justice attended the retrial on occasion. She said Thursday that she strongly disagreed with the decision.

"I think it's shameful," Justice said. "I don't think she deserved second-degree at all. I think there was a manslaughter in there. I think it happened the way she said."

Justice voted to acquit Dalton on all charges in the first trial. She said she has since befriended Dalton and has visited her in jail. She called Dalton "a very nice girl."

Risha Hartman, a friend of Dalton's, testified against her at trial. Hartman told the jury she heard the defendant say she wished Craig Dalton was dead and that she planned to kill him.

"I had to do what was right and tell the truth," Hartman said in an interview Thursday.

Turner, 48, the older brother of the victim, described Craig Dalton as "the life of the party." The senior development manager at a health services company, Dalton "would do anything for anybody," Turner said.

"He got caught up in the drama of this marriage, but anybody who ever knew him knew how good of a person he is," Turner said.

Jennifer Dalton and her supporters "distorted and assassinated" his brother's character for two years, Turner said, "and we just had to listen to it."

"Just because she's convicted, it doesn't go away," he said of his brother's absence. "I don't find any happiness in it. But she's going to have to pay for what she did."

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