Posted on 04/30/2004 6:01:59 AM PDT by Gothmog
With no evidence placing a teenager at the scene of his pregnant 14-year-old girlfriend's grisly murder, prosecutors left jurors with no choice but to acquit the 22-year-old man who admitted watching Chauntae Renee Jones die, one distraught juror said last night.
``We had to keep reminding ourselves he's innocent unless we can prove otherwise,'' the juror, who did not wish to be identified, told WCVB-TV (Ch. 5). ``It's not that he's not guilty and it's not that the defense won, it's that the prosecution couldn't make the case.''
The juror said the decision to acquit Kyle Bryant in the murders of Jones, who was eight months pregnant, and her unborn child - who were buried alive - was gut-wrenching.
``The law tied our hands, and for that, in a way, I'm grateful because the decision was not mine to make. It was only my job to match the facts to the law and what I felt and what I wanted played no part in this,'' the juror said.
Despite hearing Bryant's own audiotaped confession that on Sept. 28, 1999, he hid in a bush on the grounds of the abandoned Boston State Hospital and watched his childhood chum, Lord Hampton, now 25, choke, stab and bash Jones' head in with a rock, the jury was unconvinced that Bryant was in any way party to the murders.
``There wasn't evidence. There was no blood. There were no fingerprints. So what we felt in our gut just really didn't matter,'' she said. ``It just makes us feel awful.''
The Suffolk Superior Court jury deliberated little more than two days, during which not a single question was posed to Judge Patrick Brady, before returning the not-guilty verdicts, setting Bryant free.
``Crazy!'' one shellshocked prosecutor muttered in disbelief. ``What trial were they watching?''
What followed in the courtroom was chaos as Jones' long-suffering mother, Pamela Jones of Dorchester, had to be restrained by five court officers as she screamed, ``Don't tell me to relax! Get off of me now!''
Jones cousin, C.C. Jones, wailed and thrashed as Boston police gently held her in a futile attempt to contain her rage. ``He told me he killed her!'' C.C. Jones bellowed through tears. ``Kyle Bryant will be (expletive) dead, I promise you that!''
Sgt. Detective Daniel Keeler, who worked the case for five years, lashed out at the jury.
``You tell the disenfranchised people of this world like the Jones family the system works,'' Keeler said. ``We told them, `Don't react to the situation with violence. Wait, we've got him, he's confessed.' And now this? They believed in us and we let them down.
``There wasn't one person on that jury who couldn't say, `I'm holding out. I know he did it'? It was a total lack of civic responsibility.''
Hampton, who also has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder and will be tried separately, admits to helping bury Jones alive, but contends Bryant killed her out of fear her family would accuse him of statutory rape.
``As I'm throwing the dirt on her,'' Hampton told police, ``he's jumping up and down on her yelling, `Hurry up and die, bitch.' She gasped all the way through until she was completely buried.''
Jones was stabbed five times. One blow pierced her baby's back. An autopsy found dirt in her voice box from her suffocating final breaths.
Jurors had more than 200 pieces of evidence to consider, but in the bitter end dismissed Jones' own words from her grave in which - according to Bryant - she pleaded for his mercy.
``Kyle, help me! I love you!''
Bryant is a free man, but Jones' father, Robert Sparks, said the verdict sentenced him to a life in hell.
``All I can see is how they killed her,'' Sparks said, shaking his head. ``It's all I see. I waited five years to hear this and there's nothing I can do.''
The family's sorrow was not lost on Bryant's attorney, John Salsberg.
``I can't forget what happened to Chauntae Jones,'' Salsberg said. ``I'll never forget. (Kyle) has a life that he's going to have to start putting together again.''
Bryant's parents, Terry Baxter and Tonya Bryant, vowed to leave Boston and its bad memories far behind.
``I haven't touched (my son) since this all began,'' said Baxter, his lower lip quivering. ``We know he's not a murderer.''
Take care of those you call your own.
The courts will not.
Lock and load.
Then enjoy yourself. . .
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