Casey Anthony Wants More Kids

Juror From Casey Anthony Trial Says “My Decision Haunts Me” Ten Years After Verdict

On the 10-year anniversary of being empaneled on the notorious murder case, a juror says he still thinks about the Casey Anthony case “at least once, every single day.”

Seven women and five men were jurors on the high-profile trial of Casey Anthony.

Jurors were sequestered to hotel rooms for two months and sat through 33 days of testimony, examined over 400 pieces of evidence, and heard 91 witnesses, PEOPLE reported.

From May to July 2011, none of the jurors — or the five alternates — missed a day in court. Forty million Americans watched the trial, and almost everyone predicted that the 12 jurors would convict Anthony of murder in the death of her 2-year-old daughter.

However, that was not the case. The jurors acquitted Anthony of all the serious charges she faced. Jurors convicted her of lying to the police, and two weeks later, she was released from jail.

Jurors have remained low-key since announcing the verdict, and many of them left the areas they lived after their names went public. Most have turned down interviews.

However, a month following the verdict, one of the male jurors gave PEOPLE his take on what happened.

“Generally, none of us liked Casey Anthony at all,” he told PEOPLE. “She seems like a horrible person. But the prosecutors did not give us enough evidence to convict. They gave us a lot of stuff that makes us think that she probably did something wrong, but not beyond a reasonable doubt.”

The same juror says his decision still haunts him.

“I think of the case at least once, every single day,” he told PEOPLE on Thursday. “It was such a strange summer. I knew that there was public interest in the case, but it wasn’t until after I was sequestered that I realized that the whole world was watching.”

He also claimed that he believed prosecutors were “arrogant,” while lead defense attorney Jose Baez “was the only one in the room who seemed like he cared.”

Now he turns his attention to 2-year-old Caylee Anthony, who died.

“Every time I see her face or hear her name, I get a pit in my stomach,” he continues. “It all comes flooding back. I think about those pictures of the baby’s remains that they showed us in court. I remember Casey. I even remember the smell of the courtroom.”

Several jurors have come forward to say they battled their consciences as they voted to acquit Anthony of murder charges. The male juror told PEOPLE at the time that the enormity of the acquittal bothered them in the jury room.

“And then we sat there for a few minutes and were like, ‘Holy crap, we are letting her go free,'” he told PEOPLE in 2011. “Everyone was just stunned at what we were about to do. [One of the women jurors] asked me, ‘Are you okay with this?’ and I said, ‘Hell, no. But what else can we do? We promised to follow the law.'”

The juror says he might have had a change of heart to do something different.

“My decision haunts me to this day,” he says. “I think now if I were to do it over again, I’d push harder to convict her of one of the lesser charges like aggravated manslaughter. At least that. Or child abuse. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, and I didn’t stand up for what I believed in at the time.”

“It was painful for everyone,” says the juror. “I remember feeling sick every time I saw one of [the jurors’] names on my phone. So I muted the chat and stopped engaging. It was just too hard.”

Regardless of the aftermath, the juror says he doesn’t completely regret his time on the jury. “It’s traumatic to think about, and I wish I had done a lot of things differently,” he says, “But it’s a part of who I am. This case will stick with me for the rest of my life.”

About Crystal Gross

Crystal joined BallerAlert in 2020 to renew her passion for writing. She is a Kentucky native who now lives in the heart of Atlanta. She enjoys reading, politics, traveling, and of course writing.

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