Another Zimmerman juror has spoken out, and the woman known in press reports as B29 has countered the statements of Juror B37 with some observations of her own.
Speaking on ABC, Zimmerman juror B29, identified by her first name “Maddy,” expressed a completely different post-trial state of mind to the one indicated by B37 in her controversial Anderson Cooper interview.
Unline B37, Zimmerman juror B29 seems to feel great upset and stress over the tying of juror hands by Florida law — and doesn’t seem like she will be crying for “Georgie” any time soon.
While debates raged over the true guilt or innocence of George Zimmerman, what ultimately washed out was that under Florida law, a conviction seemed incredibly unlikely. Juror B29 seems to confirm that many on the jury of six women did not feel “right” about letting Zimmerman walk free after shooting an unarmed minor and claiming self-defense, and she didn’t mince words in saying so.
B29 explained to Good Morning America host Robin Roberts:
“You can’t put the man in jail even though in our hearts we felt he was guilty… we had to grab our hearts and put it aside and look at the evidence.”
She then said she felt in her heart Trayvon Martin was murdered , and she bitterly fought to convict :
“George Zimmerman got away with murder, 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… the law couldn’t prove it… I was the juror that was going to give them the hung jury. I fought to the end,” she said.
However, Maddy says it soon became clear the law prevented a conviction for George Zimmerman:
“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.”
Expressing regret, B29 adds :
“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.”
Perhaps the most heartbreaking part of Maddy’s remarks comes when she talks about her inability to speak after serving on the jury that freed George Zimmerman. She concludes:
“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.”
Zimmerman juror B29 will appear tonight and tomorrow morning on ABC’s Nightline and Good Morning America.