AUSTIN — After a grueling 10-day trial, a jury has ruled in favor of Infowars founder and CEO Alex Jones' ex-wife, Kelly, in the custody of their three children.

The jury, which deliberated for roughly nine and a half hours, ruled Thursday night to give Kelly Jones joint custody with the ability to dictate the residence of the children. Previously she had joint custody with limited, supervised visitation rights with residence dictated by Alex Jones.

It was a defeat for Alex Jones, who watched the verdict with a stoic expression and left promptly after the verdict without talking to reporters. Upon hearing the verdict, Kelly Jones dabbed her eyes with a tissue and hugged her lawyer, Robert Hoffman.

Moments later, Kelly Jones spoke briefly to the press, thanking God for the verdict.

"I'm so blessed to have such a wonderful support system, such a wonderful family and friends who stood beside me through all this, and I just pray that from what's happened to my family that people can really understand what parental alienation syndrome is and get an awareness about it, 'cause we could stop this from happening in future," she said.

The verdict came on the same day as the lawyers delivered their closing arguments. On Alex Jones' side, his lawyers portrayed his ex-wife as emotionally unstable and quick to wrongly accuse the Texas family court system of deep corruption against her. Conversely, Kelly Jones' lawyers made the case that Alex Jones was a "master manipulator" who'd alienated the children against her.

"Mr. Jones is like a cult leader," attorney Hoffman told the jury. "And we've seen the horrific damage cult leaders do to their followers."