SYRACUSE -- For the past three weeks, a packed courtroom has been wondering what was going through their minds – Thursday we heard from nine men and women on the Stacy Castor jury.
“We looked at this very closely because we knew so many lives had been destroyed and whatever decision we made was going to have a profound impact on everybody going forward.”
The jurors heard three weeks of testimony and looked at a mountain of evidence so, when they finally received the charge from Judge Fahey – they knew they needed to get organized.
“We had the room covered – as we called it our war room – and we sat there and looked at every single piece of evidence, every pic, every piece of testimony. And we came up with what we felt was the correct timeline and correct decision.”
One of the key questions – did they believe Stacey Castor’s testimony?
“I, for one, did not think she was believable on the stand. Just by the way she acted – she wasn’t upset at what was happening to her daughter.”
As both the prosecution and defense had predicted, the suicide note and the computer evidence played an important part in their verdict.
“When we did our timeline, we actually looked at it that, if you accepted the defense’s argument that the last time there was use on the computer was 9:34 on the 12th , even during that time, we didn’t feel Ashley was in a position to do the note.
“We wanted to make sure we based on decision on the evidence so we could go back to our own lives and sleep at night”
At least one of the jurors found defense attorney Chuck Keller’s closing arguments “all inclusive” but said that the evidence and timelines did not support it.
