'The hardest thing', jurors say after finding ex-NFL star guilty
By Elizabeth Barber FALL RIVER (Reuters) - The forewoman of the jury that found ex-National Football League star Aaron Hernandez guilty of first-degree murder on Wednesday said that making the decision was the "hardest thing" many of them had ever done. The jury of seven women and five men, mostly white, deliberated for about 36 hours over seven days before finding the former New England Patriots tight end guilty of the execution-style shooting of acquaintance Odin Lloyd in June 2013. "It's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life," said Lessa Strachan, of Taunton, Massachusetts, who served as the jury forewoman and had the job of reading out the guilty verdicts in court. "We can all stand here today and say we made the right decision." Following the verdict, Hernadez, 25, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Five of the jurors said they were Patriots fans and that they often held back tears during their deliberations. The jury weighed evidence that included photos of Lloyd's lifeless body, found in an industrial park near Hernandez's North Attleborough, Massachusetts, home by a teenage jogger. All said they had not been aware of other shootings linked to Hernandez until after they reached their verdict. [ID:nL2N0XC182] Massachusetts Superior Court Associate Justice Susan Garsh had ruled that the jury could not be told about two other shootings linked to Hernandez, including an incident in Florida in which he allegedly shot a friend in the face and a 2012 double murder in Boston for which he is awaiting trial. "We understand why we couldn't" be told about those shootings, Strachan said, adding that it would have influenced their deliberations if they had known about those cases. The jurors spoke to reporters at the Fall River, Massachusetts, courthouse where they were first summoned in January. "You're supposed to be unemotional," said Jennifer Rogers, a dental hygienist who served on the jury. "It was hard." After the jury reached its verdict, the victim's mother, Ursula Ward, tearfully spoke about the loss of her son. She said she "wanted to go into the hole" with her son when he was buried. A second juror, Sean Traverse, said the story of Lloyd's death at the age of 27 "makes you appreciate how fleeting life can be." The jurors declined to say whether they had been persuaded by defense attorneys' claim that Hernandez had only been a witness to the shooting. Another jury will be called in Boston to determine whether Hernandez is guilty of fatally shooting two Cape Verdean men outside a Boston nightclub in 2012, after a drink was spilled on him. The jurors said they were eager to return to their regular lives but were unlikely to forget the case anytime soon. "I think we'll all remember it for the rest of our lives," Strachan said. (Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
