Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Second Mistrial Declared in Murder Case : Palmdale: Jury fails to decide whether letter carrier killed his wife as she watched television in their living room.

For the second time, a Van Nuys Superior Court jury failed to reach a verdict on whether Jeffrey Dale Peitz of Palmdale killed his wife last year while she was watching television at home.

Judge Meredith C. Taylor declared a mistrial Tuesday when the jurors told her they were hopelessly deadlocked after nearly four days of deliberating. Jury members said they were split eight to four in favor of finding the defendant guilty of killing his wife, Teri Lynn Peitz, 37.

In January, a jury had hung nine to three, also in favor of conviction.

Taylor will hold a hearing this afternoon to decide whether Peitz, 39, will be tried a third time. Peitz remains in custody, without bail, where he has been since shortly after the slaying occurred in August.

Outside the courtroom, Peitz’s attorney, Richard S. Plotin, said he was disappointed that his client was not acquitted of the murder charge.

“It was a victory, but not the victory we were looking for,” Plotin said. “Obviously there is reasonable doubt in this case when you have two hung juries.”

Plotin, who has filed a motion to have the charges dismissed, said a third trial would be a “tragedy and a waste of everybody’s time and energy.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. John A. Portillo said he, too, was dissatisfied with the mistrial. “I’m disappointed, but I hope to get a third shot at it,” Portillo said. It was not clear, however, on Tuesday whether Portillo’s supervisors would ask the judge to grant them another trial.

The prosecutor said he presented virtually the same case that the earlier jury had considered in January, with the added evidence of a letter Jeffrey Peitz allegedly tried to mail recently from jail to a woman identified as his former lover. Prosecutors said during the trial that the affair was one of Peitz’s motives for the shooting.

The prosecutor said the letter proved he still had romantic feelings for the woman.

Peitz, a letter carrier, was arrested eight days after he dialed 911 to report that his wife had been shot in the living room of their Palmdale home as she sat watching her favorite television show, “Cops.” Teri Peitz was active in her local Neighborhood Watch group.

Peitz told investigators that he was upstairs folding laundry when he heard two gunshots. He said he rushed downstairs and saw his wife lying on the floor and an African American man leaving through the front door.

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He told deputies that he recognized the intruder as a man living illegally in a nearby house. The man, Peitz told authorities, had recently had an angry confrontation with the Peitzes and other Neighborhood Watch members.

Authorities said, however, that the man Peitz identified was visiting relatives in Michigan at the time of the shooting.

During the trials, the prosecutor suggested that Peitz killed his wife because of his affair with a co-worker, and because he wanted to collect on a $100,000 insurance policy.

The defendant’s daughter, Michelle Leigh Peitz, 17, testified that her parents had gone for marriage counseling two years ago. She also testified that her mother learned of her father’s affair last year, and that Teri Peitz had forgiven him after he promised that it had ended.

Plotin, the defense attorney, argued that there was no physical evidence linking Jeffrey Peitz to the slaying.

Although the defendant owned numerous firearms, authorities could not prove that any was the murder weapon. In addition, the shell casings found beside Teri Peitz’s body were not the brand of ammunition stocked at the house.

Although deputies seized a homemade silencer--a slit tennis ball that fit over a rifle barrel--in the family’s garage, they could not prove it was used at the time Teri Peitz was killed.

The lack of physical evidence led some jurors to vote for acquittal.

“I was very much open-minded, but after considering everything, I had a reasonable doubt that he did it,” said juror E.J. Jaymeson, who works for the U.S. Treasury Department.

Other jurors were certain Peitz had committed the murder.

“When you look at all the small parts and put them together, I think he was guilty,” said jury foreman Ron Brown, a store manager.