REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — Jurors in the Scott Peterson trial insisted Monday that they felt no public pressure to convict the fertilizer salesman or sentence him to death.

"Nobody in this room or outside influenced my voting on any of this. No, no, no. I went by the facts," Greg Beratlis, Juror No. 1, told a roomful of reporters about an hour after the verdict.

Beratlis and two other jurors who spoke to the press said they based their decisions on hundreds of small "puzzle pieces" of circumstantial evidence that came out during the trial, from the location of Laci Peterson's body to the myriad lies her husband told after her disappearance.

"There's thousands of little moments," jury foreman Steve Cardosi said.

Story continues

advertisement

Another panelist, Juror No. 7, Richelle Nice, said, "When you look at everything and put it all together, it spoke for itself."

Beratlis said the strongest piece of evidence was the recovery of the bodies near where Peterson had been fishing.

If the remains were found in the desert or Yosemite, Beratlis said, "we wouldn't be here."

Jury foreman Steve Cardosi said there were "thousands of little moments" that added up to a guilty verdict.

The two jurors and their foreman, Steve Cardosi, discussed both their guilty finding and their decision a month later to recommend death. Cardosi said it was much more difficult to recommend execution than to find Peterson guilty. Although two panelists were excused during the guilt phase deliberations, Cardosi said, the jurors were never split on that verdict.

On Friday, the second day of penalty-phase deliberations, however, six panelists wanted to give the 32-year-old death, two thought life in prison without parole was the correct sentence, and four had not made up their minds.

After a weekend sequestered at a local hotel and time in the deliberations room poring over photographs of the victims' remains, the jurors settled unanimously on death, the three panelists said.

Beratlis, a married father of two teenage boys, said he went "back and forth" on the sentence before "trust issues" led him to vote for death.

"The fact of the mistrust, that this person was Laci's husband, the person that married her until death do her part" swayed him, he said.

The panelists angrily rejected the claims of one juror, Justin Falconer, who was dismissed in June, that their verdicts were affected by widespread hatred of Peterson.

"He is absolutely wrong. He spent how many weeks on this trial? He knows nothing," Nice said.

During the press conference, Cardosi also explained the jury's much-examined decision to convict Peterson of first-degree murder for Laci Peterson's death and second-degree for the killing of the child they planned to name Conner.

Juror Greg Beratlis: "Nobody in this room or outside influenced my voting on any of this."

"For everything the defendant said stating that he didn't want children, he also showed examples where he was good with kids, he played with kids and everything else," he said. "It couldn't be concluded that there was definitely premeditation on the killing or murder of his son," he said.

The jurors were divided on whether they wanted Peterson to testify.

"We heard enough from him," Nice said, referring to the hours and hours of television interviews and recorded phone calls that the jury screened.

But Beratlis said he was eager to hear "anything — a plea for his life or just his opinion on everything that went on in the last two years." He said, however, that he understood it was Peterson's right not to testify.

Cardosi said Peterson's stonefaced demeanor puzzled him throughout the trial.

"You could tell he didn't get upset and cry very often until the penalty phase, when you saw a couple of tears," Cardosi said, adding that it seemed strange for a man who had lost his wife and child to not express more sadness.

Each of the panelists said they took their work very seriously. Beratlis said he could not sleep at night and had struggled to keep his emotions from his family.

"As you can see, I'm an emotional wreck," said Nice, who cried throughout the press conference. The unemployed mother of three boys said, "I've changed and I look at life a lot differently and hold my family close."

The jurors said they were very sympathetic toward Laci Peterson's mother and relatives and also felt sorry for Peterson's family.

"There are no winners," said Beratlis. "The Petersons, they lose a son. The Rochas lost their daughter and their future grandson."

Related story: Jury recommends death for Scott Peterson