The murder trial of an Orange County judge who pulled a pistol from his ankle holster and fatally shot his wife during an argument at their Anaheim Hills home ended in a mistrial Monday after jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict despite more than 40 hours of deliberations, setting the stage for an expected retrial.

A year and a half after Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ferguson, while sitting in a police station, said aloud to himself, “I killed her. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, convict my ass. I did it,” the actual jury tasked with deciding his fate announced it was deadlocked during its ninth day of deliberations, which lasted longer than the trial itself.

The jury foreperson told Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Eleanor J. Hunter they were hung 11-1 on a second-degree murder charge, with the majority of the jurors backing a guilty verdict. Had they unanimously agreed that Ferguson was not guilty of second-degree murder, the jury could have considered either a lesser involuntary manslaughter conviction or acquitting Ferguson of all charges.

Ferguson, who at times seemed to be holding back emotion during the weeklong trial, did not show any obvious reaction to the announcement of the mistrial. A retrial potentially could come in April or May.

At a news conference Monday, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer made clear he believes Ferguson intentionally shot his wife and that his office has no intention of dropping the case. Noting that 11 of the 12 jurors backed a murder conviction, Spitzer described the trial that ended in a hung jury as a “phenomenal success,” adding that they knew from the beginning what a difficult case it would be.

“She died in cold blood, and we are going to get justice for her to the best of our ability,” Spitzer said.

No one disputed that Ferguson fired the gunshot that killed his wife, Sheryl, from a Glock .40-caliber pistol he constantly carried in an ankle holster and only took off to shower or sleep.

Instead, jurors had to decide whether the judge purposely killed his wife during a heated argument, as alleged by the prosecution, or if he accidentally fired the fatal gunshot after fumbling the weapon, as argued by the defense.

Hours before the shooting, Ferguson got into an argument with his wife over money they had given the judge’s adult son from a previous marriage, Kevin, that Sheryl Ferguson felt the son hadn’t been appreciative of. The argument continued, according to testimony, as the couple went to dinner with the judge’s other son, Phillip, who was home from college for the summer.

At one point at the restaurant, Ferguson made a “finger gun” motion at his wife. The gesture angered her enough to walk away from their table for a few minutes. But the judge later testified he meant it as a way to indicate that his wife had won the argument.

When they got back to their Anaheim Hills home, the couple and their son sat down in a family room to watch the final episodes of the television show “Breaking Bad.” Jeffrey Ferguson would later admit to being drunk at the time, having had drinks at home and at the restaurant, but claimed he was trying to apologize to his wife.

Phillip Ferguson later described his mother saying, “Why don’t you use a real gun?” to his father, an apparent reference to the “finger gun” gesture at dinner. According to prosecutors, Jeffrey Ferguson immediately pulled a Glock .40-caliber pistol out of his ankle holster and fired a single gunshot, killing his wife.

Ferguson told a different story. He testified his wife actually said something like, “Why don’t you put the real gun away from me?” and followed up by making her own “finger gun” motion at him and making a “Pshew! Pshew!” sound to apparently mimic gunfire. Ferguson described taking his gun out of his ankle holster and trying to place it on a coffee table when his bad shoulder gave out and he fumbled the firearm and his finger accidentally hit the trigger.

The son in his initial police interviews described seeing his father take the gun out, aim it and fire. He also initially told police the gunshot came moments — perhaps as quickly as a second — after his mother made a comment about a gun. But in testimony during the trial, the son changed his story slightly to say he only saw the gunshot and to describe an up to 30 second delay between his mother’s comment and the gun firing.

Ferguson went outside the home to wait for paramedics, leaving his son to perform CPR on his dying mother. The judge texted the bailiff and clerk who worked in his Fullerton courtroom, telling them, “I just lost it. I shot my wife. I won’t be in tomorrow. I will be in custody. I’m so sorry.”

For more than an hour, Ferguson made a series of seemingly incriminating recorded statements, first while handcuffed outside his home and later while sitting at the Anaheim police station.