Is death enough?

Many in Citrus County don't want John Couey to be executed.

They want him buried alive. They want him released into the general population and ripped apart by other prisoners. They want him to suffer, like Jessica Lunsford suffered.

Given this overwhelming rage, is death enough? journalists asked during Wednesday evening's press conference.

It has to be, Mark Lunsford responded.

He admitted that those sentenced to death will never undergo "the misery that they caused their victims."

But, he said, bloody revenge isn't the answer.

"If we acted the way they do, we'd be barbaric," he said. "We'd be vigilantes."

-- Elena Lesley

Just like in the movies ...

At times testimony in the John Couey trial became so graphic, jurors had to distance themselves from the proceedings psychologically.

Marvin Gunn, 38, said he tried to imagine the evidence was part of a horror movie.

The jury's film selections helped this effort. One of their first nights together, jurors watched "Saw," a painfully gory flick about the "Jigsaw" serial killer.

That helped with the desensitization process, Gunn said.

-- Elena Lesley

A permanent impression

The three jurors who spoke to media said some elements of the John Couey trial will forever haunt them.

Osvaldo Pradere, 47, an alternate juror, is the father of two young children.

"I will definitely hold them closer," he said, after hearing what happened to Jessica Lunsford. "It will change my life forever." Osvaldo was particularly upset that the girl had been taken from her own home.

Parents try to keep their kids safe in day-to-day life, at the mall, in the park.

"Unfortunately, in our society, our kids aren't even safe in their own homes, in their own beds," he said.

Thais Prado said she was most disturbed by the images of Jessica's corpse.

The gruesome pictures "are very alive in my mind," she said. "Those are images that are going to be very hard to forget, if I ever do."

-- Elena Lesley

Finally, they speak

After staring at the jury from across the courtroom for weeks, wondering what members were thinking, journalists finally got the chance to pepper several jurors with questions Wednesday evening.

As their comrades fled to an undisclosed hotel, three brave jurors stayed behind to confront the press pack.

In Spanish and English, they weighed their words carefully.

"We made sure to follow the law in every decision that we took," said Thais Prado, a petite 20-year-old who wore a small gold cross around her neck. She said the jurors had found the evidence against Couey overwhelming.

There was debate, however, about the defendant's intellectual abilities. Some jurors were convinced he was mentally retarded and others were not. The jurors declined to say who, exactly, voted against the death penalty.

Did they buy Couey's courtroom doodling? journalists wanted to know.

"It could be natural; it could be a show," Prado said. "We don't know for sure."

The majority of jurors did decide, however, that Couey's tough life and mental limitations did not excuse the crime.

"It was unforgivable," Prado said.

-- Elena Lesley

A taste of Homosassa

Mark Lunsford, and others from the Fifth Judicial Circuit, gathered outside the courthouse Wednesday evening, praising the work of Miami's jurors.

Media representatives clamored to get shots, audio or quotes during a pre-arranged press conference, pushing their way forward and arguing over camera angles. More turned up to find out whether John Couey would live or die than did to hear the jury's guilty verdict.

Mark thanked the jurors for their service, embracing several that had stayed behind to talk to the press. One, Thais Prado, started to tear up and urged him to stay strong.

She told him she was "proud to have helped in the trial."

Mark asked the media throng not to hound the jurors.

"Maybe some of them would like to go home and put this thing behind them," he said, and then joked, "I know you'll be up on my doorstep."

While he, and others, said today was an achievement for the justice system, Mark emphasized that he would not abandon the fight against pedophiles.

"Don't you turn your backs on these kids," he warned journalists. "There's a story every day about a child."

Citrus County Sheriff Jeff Dawsy and State Attorney Brad King delivered similar messages.

"There are other John Coueys out there," Dawsy said. "If you're there, we're coming for you."

-- Elena Lesley

A promise kept

As John Couey hobbled out of Courtroom 4-1, characteristically bent over, the room filled with embraces.

"Closure," several supporters murmured to Mark Lunsford as they hugged each other, eyes red. Lunsford then approached Prosecutor Ric Ridgway and gripped his hand.

"Thank you."

Ridgway responded, humbly: "I told you this was what we were going to do."

-- Elena Lesley

Couey gets death

A Miami jury thinks John Couey should die for the kidnap, rape and murder of nine-year-old Jessica Lunsford.

After just over an hour of deliberation, and in a vote of ten to two, jurors recommended that the convicted killer be put to death. The Lunsford family sat quietly as the verdict was read, Archie, Jessica's grandfather, wrapping his arm around his wife.

Mark Lunsford shut his eyes briefly in relief. Archie extended his arm to rest on the backs of both his wife and son.

As usual, Couey appeared unemotive, fiddling with his tie and looking at the ceiling.

During closing statements this morning, attorneys for the state and defense instructed jurors to weigh the circumstances of the crime against any mitigating factors. Prosecutor Ric Ridgway urged them to vote for death.

There is only one word that encompasses the horror of Couey's crime, he said.

"Evil."

Whatever abuse happened in Couey's early life, whatever intellectual disadvantages he suffers from, "the choices John Couey made, with his life and the life of Jessica Lunsford, outweigh everything."

The jury agreed.

-- Elena Lesley

Jury has a verdict

At 5:14pm, just over an hour they began deciding whether John Couey should live or die, the jury reached a verdict.

People are filing back into Courtroom 4-1.

Deliberations begin

After briefing jurors in their latest instructions, Judge Ric Howard dismissed the jury at 3:59pm to begin deliberations.

Friends and family of Jessica Lunsford hugged each other, the presentation of the nine-year-old's case now complete. Defense attorneys did the same.

One man stood alone.

John Couey, hunched and looking even smaller than usual, stared at the defense table uncomfortably. He stayed there, frozen, until a bailiff finally interrupted his thoughts, motioning for him to leave the courtroom.

-- Elena Lesley

The case for life

While the prosecution blasted the claims that John Couey is retarded and mentally ill, defense attorney Alan Fanter held fast to these arguments in his closing statements.

He urged jurors to look past the horror of the crime itself. Consider Couey's traumatic upbringing, he said. Weigh his mental dullness and symptoms of psychosis. Why, as a society, would we put someone to death who is clearly mentally ill?

As Couey's "body aged, his mind didn't," Fanter said.

If jurors recommend a life sentence, Couey will never know freedom, he continued. "He will be told what to eat, when to sleep, when to go to the bathroom."

One way or the other, he will die in jail.

"Give him the opportunities he never had," Fanter pleaded. "Let him live."

-- Elena Lesley