A New Jersey jury deciding whether a prominent rabbi paid to have his wife murdered sent out word Thursday that it had reached a standstill on all three counts against the defendant after five days of deliberations.

Fred Neulander, 60, co-founder of the successful Cherry Hill, N.J., synagogue Congregation M'Kor Shalom, is accused of paying two men, Leonard Jenoff and Paul Daniels, $30,000 to murder his wife in order to continue an affair with a popular Philadelphia radio personality.

He is charged with capital murder, felony murder, and conspiracy for the November 1, 1994 murder that left Carol Neulander dead on the floor of her Cherry Hill home, and could face the death penalty if convicted.

After receiving the jury's note at 4:20 p.m., ET, on Thursday, Judge Linda Baxter, presiding over the Camden County, N.J., trial, scheduled a hearing for Friday at 9 a.m. to decide how to instruct the jury. In cases where a jury is stuck, a judge can compel the jurors to resume deliberations until they have reached a verdict.

The defense is expected to ask for a mistrial.

Earlier on Thursday, the jury asked to rehear the testimony of six key witnesses, including that of the confessed hitman, the Philadelphia newspaper reporter that urged him to come forward, and the defendant's son.

Jurors reheard some of the testimony from the state's key witness, Leonard Jenoff, including a passage concerning why he did not wear a wire to trap Neulander into discussing the murder. As a licensed private investigator, Jenoff would have been familiar with the use and operation of such recording devices.

"Did you have the capability of wearing a wire and recording the conversations on your own?" asked defense lawyer Dennis Wixted in the transcript, read by the court reporter. "Yes, I did," Jenoff said.

Jenoff admits in this testimony that the conversations he and Neulander were having at the time could have concerned the murder. Wixted then asks Jenoff why he didn't try to trap Neulander into admitting his role in the conspiracy on tape.

"It would have been damaging evidence against myself, sir, if I had chosen to confess. Why would I want a tape involving myself in the murder?" Jenoff replied.

It wasn't until six years after the murder that Jenoff, a private investigator Neulander had hired to investigate his wife's murder, confessed to police that he and his roommate, Paul Daniels, had killed Carol Neulander on the rabbi's behalf.

Both men pleaded guilty to manslaughter and are awaiting sentencing.

Four of the six witnesses from which the jury asked to rehear testimony were called during cross-examination by Neulander's defense lawyers to discredit Jenoff, whom the lawyers portrayed as a habitual liar who lived an imaginary life of cloak-and-dagger intrigue. This could suggest that jurors are focusing on the credibility of the licensed private investigator, who falsely claimed for years to be employed by the CIA and to having lied on the stand in previous court appearances.

"That's the only thing we can be sure of," said New Jersey defense lawyer Craig Mitnick, who is defending Jenoff's accomplice, Paul Michael Daniels. According to Mitnick, it is difficult to gauge just which direction the jury is leaning based on whose testimony it requested.

"They were trying to either pull toward the defense position that Jenoff is not credible or they're going back to these individuals testimony because there's some misinterpretation that would allow some of the individuals to be stuck on convicting Neulander," Mitnick said.

These witnesses include Nancy Phillips, the Philadelphia Inquirer reporter that cultivated Jenoff as a source and eventually convinced him to confess, Rick Plumb, Jenoff's roommate; David Stefankiewicz, a lawyer that employed Jenoff around the time he confessed; and George Stukenbroker, an FBI agent who testified that Jenoff came to him saying he was being recruited by members of the Israeli secret service, the Mossad.

Noting that the jury also called for the testimony of Matthew Neulander, whom many courtroom observers called the state's best witness, Mitnick adds, "Matthew Neulander is so far in extreme from Rick Plumb that you can't read into this — what the jury is doing."

Matthew Neulander, now a medical doctor, testified that he witnessed a fight between his parents only two days before the murder in which they discussed divorce, and, he testified, his father said, "'It's over.'"

Neulander, 28, the middle child of three, told the jury that his father seemed cold and unresponsive in the days after the murder. He also testified that the rabbi threatened to withhold cash from him if he didn't choose an attorney his father wanted him to hire. Rebecca Neulander-Rockoff, 31, also testified on behalf of the state while Benjamin Neulander, 25, did not testify in court.

The request to rehear the testimony of the six witnesses Thursday came nearly 22 hours since the jury's last communication with Camden County Judge Linda Baxter, when members asked what would happen if they could not reach a unanimous decision.

Judge Baxter dismissed that initial request, telling jurors they had not yet had sufficient time to weigh the 60 pieces of evidence and 40 witnesses presented in the case.

On Thursday, Baxter denied a request by one juror who was seeking to be dismissed because he said the trial, now in its fourth week, was putting a strain on his co-workers at his job. The judge also ruled that the media could be present to hear the read-back of testimony. (The jury had expressed concern that the media would speculate a verdict based on their requests).