NATCHEZ — It took an Adams County jury two hours Wednesday to find Mary McQuarters guilty of manslaughter.

While McQuarters was originally indicted on charges of murder for the 2007 homicide of her longtime boyfriend Pete Jackson, Circuit Court Judge Forrest Johnson said the state did not provide adequate evidence to prove McQuarters acted with the intent needed for a murder convivtion when she killed Jackson during a fight last September.

The trial started Tuesday.

When given a chance to address the court before sentencing, McQuarters apologized to Jackson’s family.

In her testimony Wednesday McQuarters said that she had been drinking before and after the fight that lead to Jackson’s death and that Jackson had been using cocaine and drinking before his death.

“Drugs and domestic violence relationships don’t work out,” she said to the court.

When McQuarters took the stand in her own defense she said when Jackson attacked her on the night of Sept. 28, 2007, his drug use and drinking made him look like “he had stars in his eyes,” as he attacked her.

“He was not his normal self that night,” she said.

While McQuarters’ attorney Robert Clark said the couple had dealt with domestic violence issues in the past, the night of Jackson’s death was different.

“It was not like our usual fights,” McQuarters said of the argument that started over money Jackson was owed by a third party.

McQuarters said Jackson knocked over a glass-topped table and has he choked her she “stuck him in the (left) arm,” with a piece of broken glass.

On Monday a forensic pathologist, called as an expert witness, testified that cut six inches deep on Jackson’s left arm severed his radial artery and caused him to bleed to death.

And while McQuarters admitted to cutting Jackson with the glass as he choked her, Wednesday’s mention of choking was the first McQuarters made in the entire investigation, prosecuting attorney Walt Brown said in his closing remarks to the jury.

Fellow prosecutor David Hall said McQuarters’ failure to tell any of the law enforcement officials she was interviewed by that she was choking and several inconsistencies in her written statements ruined her credibility.

After sentencing, Clark said he had advised McQuarters not to testify.

“But that’s her right,” Clark said. “She felt she had to tell the jury what happened.”

In August 2008 McQuarters attempted to enter a manslaughter plea but would not discuss the crime, Johnson said.

In that instance McQuarters essentially would not discuss what happened and without her testimony there was no evidence, Johnson said.

Johnson said when McQuarters attempted to cover her crime, in an attempt to make it look as if Jackson had been murdered while she was out. It only made a bad situation worse.

“People do wrong things sometimes, but that doesn’t make them a bad person. And sometimes we make matters worse,” he said. “You did the same thing and kept making it worse.”

McQuarters, now 54, was sentenced to 15 years in prison and five years of post release supervision.

During her sentencing she sat quietly. Only her sister cried quietly.