SAN DIEGO -- Seven men and five women were seated Friday as jurors in the trial of a former county toxicologist accused of poisoning her husband after he threatened to report her for drug use and an affair with her boss.

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Kristin Rossum, 25, is charged with murder and a special circumstance allegation of murder by poison in the Nov. 6, 2000, death of 26-year-old Gregory de Villers, her spouse of 17 months.

Rossum, who worked for the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office, faces life in prison without parole if convicted.

Opening statements are set for Tuesday in a trial expected to last three to four weeks.

Attorneys for both sides exhausted all of their 20 peremptory challenges before the panel was selected. Two men and two women were chosen as alternates.

Rossum, free on $1.25 million bail, cried as the jury selection process drew to a close.

Prosecutors theorize that Rossum gave de Villers a lethal drug cocktail after he threatened to report her for methamphetamine use and for having an affair with her married supervisor, Michael Robertson.

The defendant interned at the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office in the summer of 1997 and eventually was hired as a toxicologist. Supervising toxicologist Frank Barnhart said Rossum was the most talented student he had worked with in 29 years at the office.

Rossum allegedly stole a powerful painkiller, fentanyl, from the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office with the help of Robertson and administered the drug to her husband, prosecutors allege.

Court papers filed by prosecutors describe Robertson, who moved back to his native Australia after de Villers' death, as "an unindicted co-conspirator."

Both Rossum and Robertson were fired from their jobs -- Rossum for methamphetamine use and Robertson for failing to tell his supervisors about his affair with the defendant.

Authorities first thought de Villers committed suicide, but Rossum was arrested in June 2001 and charged with murder.

Prosecutors said Rossum staged an "American Beauty" suicide scene to make it look as though her husband took his life. Paramedics testified at a preliminary hearing last year that rose petals were found around the victim's body, mirroring a scene in the film "American Beauty." De Villers also was clutching his wedding photo, witnesses testified.

The weekend he died, Rossum told de Villers she was leaving him, according to court testimony.

Rossum's father, Ralph, said his son-in-law had been "spiraling down" for some time, spent weekends in bed and was depressed.

De Villers, who helped his wife kick her meth habit years earlier, detested drugs, prosecutors said.

In addition to fentanyl, the painkiller Oxycodone and the sedative Clonazepam were found in de Villers' system. No syringes or fentanyl patches were near his body.