NASHUA – A jury of six men and six women deliberated for four hours Friday and then broke for the weekend without returning a verdict in the trial of Angel “Chino” Santos, who’s accused of stabbing a man at least five times during a home invasion.

That the jury wasn’t able to reach a quick verdict was no surprise, given that both prosecution and defense attorneys described the case as difficult during closing arguments Friday morning in Hillsborough County Superior Court.

“This is going to be a tough case for you. You all know that,” Assistant Hills-borough County Attorney Cassie Devine told the jury.

Prosecutors said Nashua Police Detective William Adamson didn’t make their job easy.

“Did Detective Adamson do a good job?” Devine said. “No, he did not, and he gave the defense plenty to work with.”

Defense attorneys said Adamson botched a photo lineup during the investigation, leading to what the defense termed an unreliable identification of Santos by one of the witnesses.

Despite that, Devine argued the state proved its case that Santos was responsible for stabbing Taylor Whiting at his Calais Street home on Sept. 5, an attack that potentially could have cost Whiting his life had he not received immediate medical attention at St. Joseph Hospital.

If convicted, Santos, 21, faces 71?2-15 years in prison on the first-degree assault charge, a class A felony. Judge Jacalyn Colburn sent only that charge to the jury.

On Thursday, Colburn threw out a burglary charge, saying the state hadn’t proved its contention that Santos accompanied drug dealer Kyle Bouley into 117 Calais St. at about 2 a.m. with the intent to commit assault.

She first ruled that the prosecution could present a lesser charge of criminal trespass, but later rejected that charge, too.

The assault was the by-product of a dispute between two drug dealers, one of whom owed money to the other. Ironically, neither Santos nor Whiting was one of the drug dealers in the dispute.

Santos accompanied Bouley to the home where he knew the other dealer, Todd Lockwood, was hanging out. Bouley owed Lockwood money, and Lockwood had threatened to send people “to break Bouley’s legs,” prosecutors said.

Prosecutors Devine and Kent Smith, also an assistant county attorney, said Bouley invaded the Calais Street home in a pre-emptive strike against Lockwood. Santos accompanied him for protection and armed himself with a knife he picked up in Bouley’s kitchen, prosecutors said.

Bouley charged into the room through a sliding glass door, armed with a wooden dowel. Whiting, a martial arts expert, struggled with Bouley. As the two men fought, Santos stabbed Whiting in the back, according to prosecutors.

However, Santos’ public defender attorneys said Bouley was actually the one who stabbed Whiting. Bouley and Lockwood received immunity to testify in the case, and testimony of other witnesses sometimes contradicted each other.

“There’s not a shred of physical, forensics evidence that links Mr. Santos to this crime,” his attorney, Kristin Weberg, said in closing arguments.

Weberg and co-counsel Sarah Newhall built a case that Bouley, not Santos, wielded the knife that cut Whiting.

“It’s all about Kyle,” Weberg told the jury, describing Bouley as “a drug dealer, a coward, a convicted liar.”

In its deliberations, the jury has to weigh the testimony of drug dealers granted immunity in the case, as well as which witnesses to believe.

Weberg noted that police didn’t find a drop of blood on Santos’ clothing, while Bouley was saturated in Whiting’s blood.

Devine told the jury that Whiting was struggling with Bouley when Santos approached him from behind, stabbed him repeatedly in rapid succession and then retreated to the other side of the room. That explains why the victim’s blood was on Bouley but not on Santos, Devine said.

Given how the men were struggling with the dowel, Bouley couldn’t have reached behind Whiting to stab him, as the defense contended, Devine said.

The jury is scheduled to resume deliberations at 10 a.m. Monday.