Jurors in the murder trial of Ulisses Rodriguez deliberated all day Thursday without reaching a decision on whether he is guilty of murdering Jeremy Kuemmel and Tiffany Ellebrecht on a marijuana grow in Southern Humboldt.

Because today is a court holiday, the jury won’t start deliberating again until Monday morning.

Most jurors seemed to be in good spirits, talking and laughing, as they left the courthouse at 4:30 p.m.

Rodriguez.

Rodriguez, 27, is accused of shooting the couple to death, dragging their chained bodies to the back of Kuemmel’s Ford Expedition and then setting the vehicle on fire. The blazing Expedition was left in a turnout on Briceland Road.

Much depends on whether jurors believed the trial testimony of John Doe and Chano Sanchez, workers at the grow site who said Rodriguez told them he killed the couple and needed their help with the bodies.

Afterward, according to Sanchez and Doe, Rodriguez allowed them to leave but told them to come back in an hour with gasoline. Instead Doe went to a lawyer, then to law enforcement, to report what he had witnessed.

During closing arguments Wednesday, prosecutor Luke Bernthal said Sanchez and Doe told the truth, and their accounts are supported by the physical evidence.

But defense attorney Andrea Sullivan said Doe and Sanchez should be considered suspects. She argued that Doe had been selling methamphetamine to Kuemmel and Ellebrecht, and they were killed because they hadn’t paid their bill.

Sullivan said the car was set on fire on a main road to “send a message.”

Rodriguez was arrested at his parents’ home in Chico a few says after the killings. His mother and father have been in the courthouse every day of the trial. They headed home to Chico on Thursday but were planning to be back in Eureka on Monday.

Rodriguez has been in Humboldt County Correctional Facility since a few days after the killings on Aug. 14, 2018. He is charged with two counts of murder, making criminal threats and arson. He also is accused of special allegations that could mean life in prison without parole if he is convicted.

Jurors were given four options: first-degree murder, second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter and acquittal.