OREGON CITY, Ore. (RNS) As jurors agonized through two days of deliberations over the fate of two parents accused in the faith-healing death of their teenage son, they kept coming back to what the mother told police hours after her son died.

Juror Amy Slatford said she and fellow jurors found much of the evidence in the faith-healing trial contradictory or speculative, but the tape-record police interview gave them firsthand knowledge of the parents’ thoughts and actions.

She said jurors relied on that interview more than any other piece of evidence in deciding that Jeffrey and Marci Beagley were guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the death of their son Neil, 16.

They will be sentenced Feb. 18.

Marci Beagley told a police detective that she and her husband wanted to respect their son’s wishes to be treated with faith healing rather than taken to a doctor. She also said she generally defers to her husband in such matters.

A detective pressed the point. If you knew not taking Neil to the doctor was illegal, would that change your mind? “Regardless of the law, I would follow my husband,” Marci Beagley responded.

Slatford said her own conclusion that the Beagleys were guilty was driven by their actions.

“The Beagleys did not call 9-1-1 when Neil stopped breathing. The Beagleys did not proceed with CPR when Neil stopped breathing,” said Slatford, 26. “I believe that was the strongest evidence against them. They did not believe in any kind of emergency medical care.”

Neil died in June 2008 from an undiagnosed but treatable congenital urinary blockage. Instead of seeking medical help, his parents, members of the Followers of Christ Church in Oregon City, attempted to heal him with prayer, anointing with oil and laying on of hands.

Slatford said jurors also discussed how the Beagleys believed in preventive care, making trips to the dentist or the ophthalmologist. “But if it came down to life-saving medical treatment, I believe the Followers of Christ Church did not believe in that,” Slatford said.

Jurors began deliberations with about half favoring a guilty verdict, she said.

“I’m a strong believer to do what is in your heart, and when this trial began, I believed that they should be able to practice their faith,” Slatford said. “But once the Oregon law applied, there was no way to go around it.”