Twelve strangers gathered around a table in an upper room of a Bastrop courthouse. Bags of crime scene evidence from the homicide of a teenage girl were scattered before them. Occasionally an overwhelmed juror stood up and walked toward the window for fresh air, looking down at the empty lawn below. It was May 1998, and the town’s first capital murder trial in almost fifty years had just begun.Days in the courtroom turned into weeks. By the end of May, the twelve were no longer strangers, and cardboard covered the windows, from which law enforcement officers instructed them to stay away. Muffled shouts and passionate chants reverberated from the lawn. Protesters surrounded the perimeter of the courthouse, news vans lined the curb, and TV reporters…
The post Many in Bastrop Moved on From the Rodney Reed Trial. One Juror Couldn’t. appeared first on Texas Monthly.
Read: Read More