RALEIGH - A jury spent several hours deliberating Tuesday without deciding whether Jakiem Wilson planned to kill Nneka Wilson, his wife and mother of their two children, or whether he killed her in a fit of rage in February 2007 in their Wendell-area home.

Jurors will continue their deliberations today. A first-degree murder conviction could mean a death sentence, while the lesser charge of second-degree murder would allow Wilson to eventually leave prison.

Wake Assistant District Attorney Stephanie Davis said in her closing argument Tuesday that Wilson plotted to kill his wife, even asking a fellow gang member to do it. Davis dismissed testimony from a defense expert witness who said that Jakiem Wilson couldn't control his anger because of a history of sexual and physical abuse as well as his own alcohol and drug use.

"Dysfunctional thinking?" Davis asked. "No. He knew exactly what he was going to do."

Wilson's defense attorneys said they are not asking jurors to find Wilson not guilty. He has already admitted that he stabbed his wife to death.

"We are not saying anything to excuse Jakiem's behavior and what he did," said Hoyt Tessener, one of Wilson's attorneys. "There's no excuse for that."

Instead, they hope jurors agree that Wilson suddenly killed her and hadn't planned it.

Nneka Wilson, 24, and Jakiem Wilson had a rocky relationship throughout much of their three-year marriage, according to family members and court testimony.

On Feb. 12, 2007, Wilson called two of his fellow gang members, Jamie Holder and Roderick Howell, and said he wanted to kill his wife by attacking her as she stepped out of the shower, the two testified.

A little while later, he called the two back and picked them up so they could help him stage the scene to make it look as if a rival gang had killed her, Holder and Howell testified. Howell said Wilson later said he killed his wife because she nagged him and would want child support if they split up.

The trio cleaned up much of the blood spattered around the house, and Wilson told Holder to write a threatening message with a rag that had been dipped in Nneka Wilson's blood. A sobbing Jakiem Wilson called an emergency dispatcher the next day and said he had arrived home to find his wife's naked body in the kitchen in a pool of her blood. Sheriff's investigators, after speaking with Howell and Holder, arrested Wilson by the end of the day and charged him in her death.