George Zimmerman Trial Juror B29 Says He 'Got Away With Murder'
The Huffington Post | By Danielle Cadet
Posted: 07/25/2013 3:35 pm EDT
Updated: 07/25/2013 4:53 pm EDT
The only minority on the jury that found George Zimmerman not guilty for fatally shooting 17-year-old Trayvon Martin sat for an exclusive interview with Robin Roberts for Friday's "Good Morning America" and revealed very strong feelings about how the 29-year-old fared in his trial.
"George Zimmerman got away with murder," she said. "But you can't get away from God. And at the end of the day, he's going to have a lot of questions and answers he has to deal with. [But] the law couldn't prove it."
Although formerly only known as juror B29, she allowed her face to be shown and chose to withhold her last name, only using her first name Maddy.
A 36-year-old Puerto Rican nursing assistant, Maddy was the only minority on the six-person jury. She admitted she was the juror who originally wanted to convict Zimmerman of second-degree murder, but eventually realized that the evidence didn't support a guilty verdict with respect to his claim of self-defense.
"I was the juror that was going to give them the hung jury. I fought to the end," she said. "That's where I felt confused, where if a person kills someone, then you get charged for it. But as the law was read to me, if you have no proof that he killed him intentionally, you can't say he's guilty."
She continued, "as much as we were trying to find this man guilty…they give you a booklet that basically tells you the truth, and the truth is that there was nothing that we could do about it. I feel the verdict was already told."
However, as a mother of eight children, Maddy said she wonders if she made the right decision and feels like she owes Martin's parents an apology.
"It's hard for me to sleep, it's hard for me to eat because I feel I was forcefully included in Trayvon Martin's death. And as I carry him on my back, I'm hurting as much Trayvon's Martin's mother because there's no way that any mother should feel that pain," she said.
Maddy is the second juror to speak out since the trial ended. Juror B37 first spoke with CNN's Anderson Cooper, saying Zimmerman was "justified" in shooting the teen. Shortly after the interview, four jurors released a statement saying juror B37's opinions were not representative of their own.
Zimmerman was acquitted on July 13 after several weeks of his second-degree murder trial for shooting and killing Martin in February 2012. Although jurors were allowed to consider a lesser charge of manslaughter, he was found not guilty on all counts and maintains he shot the teen in self-defense.
Portions of Roberts' interview with Maddy will air on Thursday evening's "ABC World News with Diane Sawyer" and "Nightline." The interview will air in its entirety Friday morning.
