BARNSTABLE, Mass. (AP) – The jury who deadlocked after five days of deliberations in the case of a murdered fashion writer started all over Tuesday after a juror was kicked out for discussing media coverage and telling her jailed boyfriend that police officers were “dumb.”

The replacement of the young woman – whose telephone conversations were recorded by the jail – came over the objections of an attorney for Christopher McCowen, who is charged with rape, murder and burglary in the January 2002 slaying of Christa Worthington.

“Altering the composition of this jury at this point absolutely destroys the defendant’s right to a fair trial,” said attorney Robert George, whose immediate motion for a mistrial was denied.

The panel had deliberated five days when they told Judge Gary Nickerson on Monday they were deadlocked. Nickerson ordered them to keep working to hammer out a verdict, and sequestered the panel Monday night in a hotel.

In two phone conversations played in court Tuesday between the juror and her boyfriend, Kyle Hicks, a suspect in a weekend shooting, the juror disparaged police officers, and said Court TV had reported a link between a juror in the Worthington case and the shooting.

“I am so mad that somebody leaked it out about me” being a juror, she told Hicks, who urged her to find a way off the jury. Hicks is being held in the same Barnstable jail as McCowen.

She also complained that officers had interviewed her about Hicks’ alleged involvement in a shooting Saturday morning, calling them “dumb.”

The judge said the juror, when questioned by him Monday about the shooting, had said she had only a distant relationship with Hicks, who is the father of her child. The judge agreed with prosecutors that she had ignored his admonitions to avoid media coverage, and that her statements showed a potential bias against police, requiring her removal from the jury.

So at midday, weary jurors were told by Nickerson they had to start anew. He warned them to destroy any charts or paperwork from their earlier deliberations and said that simply bringing the new juror up to speed would not be enough. As the end of the day approached, they asked to work an extra hour before being taken to the hotel. They adjourned without reaching a verdict Tuesday, and will resume today.

Worthington, 46, was found lying in a pool of blood in her Truro home, dead from a single stab wound to her chest, with her 21/2-year-old daughter, Ava, clinging to her body.

McCowen, who was Worthington’s garbage man, initially denied having any physical contact with her. But after police showed him a DNA report linking him to the crime scene, he told eight different versions of the events leading up to Worthington’s death, according to a state police trooper who testified during the trial.

McCowen said he had consensual sex with Worthington and beat her during an argument, but claimed his friend, Jeremy Frazier, stabbed and killed her. Frazier was never charged.

Prosecutors told the jury that McCowen’s DNA was found on Worthington’s body and said his own statements to police amounted to at least a partial confession.

The first jury panel said it was deadlocked on all three charges: first-degree murder, aggravated rape and aggravated burglary.