Two weeks after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin, the only person on the jury who is a member of an ethnic minority said in an ABC News interview that Zimmerman “got away with murder.’
Juror B29, identified only by her first name Maddy, sat down with ABC’s Robin Roberts, to discuss the trial for “Good Morning America.” As the first juror to show her face on camera, Maddy expressed both conviction and regret.
“You can’t put the man in jail even though in our hearts we felt he was guilty,” Maddy said of Zimmerman.
A nursing assistant and mother of eight children, Maddy, 36, who is Puerto Rican, said she believed she owed Trayvon Martin’s parents an apology because she felt “like I let them down.”
She also said that the case shouldn’t have gone to trial and that it was “a publicity stunt.” Despite this, she said the decision weighed heavily on her.
“It’s hard for me to sleep; it’s hard for me to eat because I feel I was forcefully included in Trayvon Martin’s death. And as I carry him on my back, I’m hurting as much [as] Trayvon’s Martin’s mother because there’s no way that any mother should feel that pain,” she said.
In the interview with Roberts, Maddy also discussed the different options the jury was presented and how she “fought to the end.”
“I was the juror that was going to give them the hung jury,” she said.
In response to Maddy’s interview, Trayvon Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, released a statement Thursday night.
“It is devastating for my family to hear the comments from juror B29, comments which we already knew in our hearts to be true. That George Zimmerman literally got away with murder.”
Excerpts of the interview aired on ABC’s “World News with Diane Sawyer” and on “Nightline” Thursday night. The full interview aired Friday morning on “Good Morning America.”