After just five days of deliberating a case that had been argued for 16 weeks before them, the jury in the Enron trial of Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling said they surprised themselves on Thursday by finding themselves with a unanimous guilty verdict.

"It took an awful lot to convince some of us of what we came up with," said Nancy Thomas, a juror who described herself as retired. She had repeatedly wiped tears away as the verdict was read, her shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs.