As jury deliberates in Lucero case, speculation abounds

All anyone could do was wait.

The witnesses had already testified. The legal arguments had all been made. The judge had issued his instructions, and the jurors were plodding on.

But did any of us really know what was going on in there? Of course not. There's nothing more opaque than a jury deliberating.

No one even knows when it may end.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday - Jeffrey Conroy has waited and wondered. At 19, he is on trial in the courthouse in Riverhead over the stabbing death of Ecuadorean immigrant Marcelo Lucero, 37, near the Patchogue train station. The top charge is murder as a hate crime. The case is a criminal trial and a social debate rolled into one.

Did the delay mean the jurors were assembling damning evidence? Did it mean they were wrestling over reasonable doubt? Did the three days - and counting - mean some kind of jury-room horse-trading was under way?

Everyone on every side had an opinion. Nobody knew anything.

Except for this: Time ticks slowly when a jury is working.

And the walls of the jury room are very thick.

ELLIS' LONG ISLANDER OF THE WEEK

LINDA BOYD

For 16 years, renowned flutist Linda Boyd has been inspiring students at Wright Music in Port Washington, building a whole new generation of young flutists on Long Island. When one of Boyd's students, eighth-grader Sarah Weiss, wanted to use her flute in a Bat Mitzvah project - the two of them came up with a unique idea: Why not put on a concert to benefit victims of the Haitian earthquake? As word spread around the music school, 16 other students agreed to join in. Their flute-and-piano concert, benefiting the Hope for Haiti Children's Center, is set for Thursday, April 29 at 7:30 p.m. at the Community Synagogue, 160 Middle Neck Road, Sands Point. "Sarah and all the students have been so generous with their talent and their time," Boyd said. "They really are using their gifts to help people in need."