Alternate jurors have mixed reactions on Conroy's guilt

Three of the four alternate jurors released from duty Wednesday in Jeffrey Conroy's murder and manslaughter trial said they thought the Medford teenager is guilty of the fatal stabbing of an Ecuadorean immigrant, but one alternate said she is not sure.

After State Supreme Court Judge Robert W. Doyle released the four alternates, 12 regular jurors in the Riverhead trial began deliberations, considering whether Conroy stabbed Marcelo Lucero, 37, near the Patchogue railroad station on Nov. 8, 2008.

Conroy, 19, has been charged with second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter as hate crimes and is facing a maximum sentence of life in prison.

One alternate, Judith Hallock, 70, of South Setauket, in an interview with Newsday, said she was leaning toward finding Conroy guilty, but wasn't certain how she would have voted had she been allowed to deliberate.

"Definitely manslaughter one," said Hallock, a retired schoolteacher. "Murder? I don't know. I just can't believe he murdered the guy."

She said she stopped short of deciding Lucero's slaying was an intentional killing after hearing Doyle's legal explanation of "intent" as it applies to the state's second-degree murder charge.

"I really don't believe that was his intent," Hallock said.

Hallock said she was convinced, however, that the Lucero killing was a hate crime.

"When you heard the evidence, what else could it have been?" she said. "There's no way it was anything other than a hate crime."

Alternate juror Joyce Duck, also a retired schoolteacher, said she was undecided on the case.

"It's just a hard thing," Duck said. "I don't think I would have said murder. I don't think he intentionally went out to kill anybody that night."

Alternate Cosmos Hionides of Commack said he was convinced of Conroy's guilt as he listened to testimony but that he thought Conroy committed second-degree manslaughter, not murder.

"I don't think it was a murder case," Hionides said. "They never planned that."

Hionides said Conroy would have been better off not taking the witness stand last week, when he blamed another teenager, Christopher Overton of East Patchogue, for the crime. Overton was one of six teenagers Conroy was with that night; all were implicated in the attack on Lucero, but only Conroy faces murder and manslaughter charges.

And alternate Cathy Tidmarsh, 54, an airline reservation agent, said she felt Conroy was guilty of a crime and she "was leaning strongly toward the murder charge."

As the jury began its first day of deliberations, the panel asked for a readback of testimony from another teen, Nicholas Hausch, who was in the group of teens present when Lucero was fatally stabbed. Hausch said at trial that Conroy told him he stabbed Lucero right after the encounter. Hausch also said Conroy displayed a bloodstained knife.

Another key element of Hausch's testimony was his statement to Prosecutor Megan O'Donnell that he, Conroy and the five other teens decided to look for homeless Hispanics to attack in a wooded area near Hausch's Medford home before they went to Patchogue to search for Hispanics.

Conroy denied on the stand last week that he had gone looking for Hispanics near Hausch's home. But a surprise defense witness, Arturo Perez, said he had seen a group of seven teens emerging from the wooded area and said one of them was Hausch, his neighbor.

The jury also asked to see the clothing Conroy wore on the night Lucero was stabbed. Investigators found Lucero's blood on Conroy's tank top and on the back of his pants. The jurors also asked for photos of all seven teenagers arrested that night and for the written statement that police took from Conroy, as well as several legal definitions.