Juror In Cyanide Poisoning Case: "I Feel That We Did Justice"
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Several jurors are opening up about the experience after handing down a first-degree murder conviction to the University of Pittsburgh medical researcher accused of poisoning his wife with cyanide.
Some wanted to give their names, others didn't. But they all said they believed the first blood test, the one that showed a lethal level of cyanide.
EXCLUSIVE: 1-On-1 With Juror No. 10:
"I feel that we did justice," said Juror No. 6.
"I hope we did justice for them," added Juror No. 7. "My thoughts and prayers go out to her family and friends."
That is the message to the family of Dr. Autumn Klein from jurors No. 6 and 7, after their first-degree murder conviction for Dr. Robert Ferrante.
They reached their verdict approaching the 16th hour of deliberations. It was announced by juror No. 7, the foreman, who is a store manager with an MBA.
What helped sway him? Among other things, he says his perception that Ferrante wasn't consistent in his story about the night Klein collapsed.
"When Dr. Ferrante made the statement, a number of different statements where he was in the house when Autumn Klein came into the house," he said. "That's what really didn't really make sense to me. So that's one of the reasons why I reached the verdict of guilty."
The jurors listened a second time to the 911 call during deliberations, looking for more clues, and said that evidence, as well as the groans of the victim, were hard to listen to.
Juror No. 6 is a father of two young children.
"To hear the moaning and groaning and someone helpless, and then to come to the verdict of guilty, and realize what was happening in that moment, it's very heart wrenching to understand anybody could do that," he said.
Helen Ewing was juror No. 3, one of only four women on the panel of 12.
"I empathized with the fact that it would have been incredibly difficult for me to make that decision to send someone to life in prison," she said. "I had to be absolutely certain, and that took me an incredibly long time. In the end for me, it was very hard for me to accept, to believe that he could have done it. But I felt that the facts were clear and I couldn't argue with them."
Ferrante will be formally sentenced to life in prison in February.
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