ROAD TOWN, British Virgin Islands — The Caribbean sun shone brightly on Barbara Labrador as she lit the first in a succession of Marlboro Lights.

Still reeling from a jury's finding Thursday that her son murdered Lois McMillen of Connecticut, Labrador brushed her blonde hair from her blood-shot eyes and was calm as she talked about her resolve to find justice for the newest "lifer" at Her Majesty's Prison here on the island of Tortola.

"I'm better now than I was last night. I felt like I was hit by a truck and the truck was still on me," Labrador said, flicking ashes into a tray on the deck of her cluttered hotel room overlooking the blue-green waters of Sir Francis Drake Channel.

Late Thursday, Labrador had to be helped out of the courtroom after the jury of seven women and two men pronounced William Labrador, a former modeling agency executive from New York, guilty of the Jan. 14, 2000, murder of McMillen. Seated on a blue, vinyl chaise lounge Friday, Barbara Labrador said she has only begun to fight on behalf of her son.

"The gears are already turning," Barbara Labrador said, referring to a notice of appeal that must be filed within 14 days.

Although jurors declined to give interviews, Justice Kenneth Benjamin laid out the framework for their seven and a half hours of deliberations. Cutting through the legalese, Benjamin boiled the case down to the word of William Labrador against the word of Jeffrey Plante of Texas.

Plante, 59, testified that Labrador confessed to drowning McMillen after an argument over money. Labrador denied killing McMillen and making any such statements to Plante, a convicted felon who has 32 bad check charges hanging over him here and a parole violation warrant in Texas.

"Certainly in the U.S., the uncorroborated testimony of a convicted felon would not, as far as I know, be sufficient to bring anyone to trial," Barbara Labrador told Court TV, speaking exactly one year after Plante first made an official statement about her son's alleged confession. "If that was so, anyone would be able to say anything. We need protection from that kind of thing, and this [conviction] is an example of why that kind of protection is necessary."

Benjamin told the jury during his nearly four hours of instruction and case summary Thursday that if they did not believe Plante, they would have to look at the rest of the prosecution's case to see if they could substantiate a verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. He also invited jurors to examine not only alleged lies told by Plante about his own background, but also allegations that Labrador lied either to police or on the stand.

The judge pointed specifically to Labrador's testimony that he was not aware until two nights before the murder that his boyhood friend, Alexander Benedetto of New York, had had an intimate relationship with McMillen in 1997. But the day after McMillen's body was discovered on the shoreline, Labrador told police in a statement — which he affirmed in testimony as completely true — that neither he nor his friends ever had an intimate relationship with the 34-year-old victim as far as he knew.

There was also the question of footwear.

A police inspector testified that Labrador told him that he was wearing wet and sandy Adidas sneakers throughout the day and night of Jan. 14, 2000. Sand from the shoes did not match the crime scene. On the stand, however, Labrador testified that he was wearing Fila brand shoes when he went out at night briefly with his friends. In his instructions, the judge invited the jury to ask themselves why the police inspector would seize the sneakers if Labrador told him that he was wearing other shoes that night.

It is also unclear whether Labrador's refusal to answer questions about past business dealings because of confidentiality agreements worked against him. Even his lawyer appeared surprised that Labrador, on trial for murder and fighting for his liberty, would refuse to answer every question put to him.

Prosecutors highlighted the fact that Labrador told police he was an investment banker, even though he does not hold a license and never took the required tests. Labrador offered the explanation that he was a financial management consultant, which he said amounts to the same thing.

And then there was his demeanor on the stand, which prosecutor Theodore Guerra labeled "more pious than the Pope." Also, Labrador was not emphatic in his denials that he killed Lois McMillen.

Labrador's longtime friend and one of his New York lawyers, Sean Murphy, said any "white lies" the defendant may have told are irrelevant to the issue faced by the jury. With no physical evidence and only a prison snitch's testimony about a vague confession, there was no way the prosecution could meet its heavy burden of finding guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, Murphy said.

"We're redoubling our efforts. This guy didn't do it. He didn't commit the murder," Murphy said. "This was a joke. There just was no evidence."

The governor, chief minister, police commissioner and senior prosecutor for this British territory did not returns calls Friday.

Resting at the villa he and his wife own on the island's West End, Russell McMillen said the victim's family was too tired to talk in length about the trial and verdict.

"We are really exhausted. We have not much of anything to say," said the 83-year-old McMillen, who climbed the steps to the second-floor courtroom every day for six weeks with the aid of a cane. "Justice took its course and we are mentally, physically, totally exhausted."

Asked about Barbara Labrador's comment to him and his wife after the verdict that the real killer remains at large and that the couple did a "great disservice" to their daughter, Russell McMillen said he understands how the convicted man's mother must feel now.

"I feel sorry for her. It's her son," McMillen said. "She thinks he's innocent. She's the mother and she kind of fell apart. I feel sorry for her."

Shoeless and wearing a dark-blue sundress with dolphins outlined in white, Barbara Labrador stood by her statements Friday. "I said what I said in court," the Southampton, N.Y., resident said without elaborating and excused herself again to answer the constantly ringing telephone in her room at the Prospect Reef Resort. She has been getting telephones calls from supporters and family in the U.S., as well as requests for interviews from many New York-based media outlets.

Barbara Labrador then looked at her watch. It was time to get ready to visit her son at the prison, a half-hour cab ride over rough roads that cut through the hills on the island's East End.

"From the very beginning, William said, 'Be strong for me' and he is strong," Barbara Labrador said. "He was stronger than I was yesterday. Now it is just a matter of picking yourself up and doing the next right thing."