How could a jury convict Joy O'Shea Woomer of third-degree murder?

The private-duty nurse had never met 11-year-old Brent Weaver, so why would she kill him and risk everything?

Dozens of witnesses testified to Woomer's outstanding character, so why would anyone think this beloved 50-year-old woman could do something so terrible?

Ever since a Lancaster County jury handed down its guilty verdict two weeks ago today, the case has been the conversation of the county.

From the angry buzz of online opinions to curious chatter in supermarkets and diners, people are still talking about the jury's decision to convict Woomer.

A conviction that will mean at least six years in prison.

Recently, on the condition of anonymity, one of the jurors agreed to talk to this newspaper about the jury's deliberations in detail — and how it reached its controversial verdict.

He explained how the jury painstakingly analyzed all the testimony, including that of Woomer, who consistently and adamantly denied killing the child.

But, he said, after considering the law they were sworn to uphold, the jurors felt there was only one possible verdict: guilty of third-degree murder.

The case

The trial, which lasted nearly two weeks in the courtroom of Judge David Ashworth, focused on one indisputable fact: Brent Weaver died from a lethal dose of morphine.

His parents, Mark and Carol Weaver, had hired Woomer, a licensed practical nurse, to watch their son during the night while they slept.

The boy had cerebral palsy, along with other health problems, and frequently woke up during the night, needing to be repositioned so he could sleep more comfortably.

On the night of Sept. 26, 2002, Woomer arrived at the Weavers' East Hempfield Township home. It was her first night to work for the family.

By daybreak the following morning, the boy was dead.

The deliberations

The members of the jury of seven men and five women were a mixture of ages and professions.

All the jurors, according to the member who discussed the case, were well-educated, intelligent and committed to doing their civic duty.

"We all took copious notes, listened intently to everything that was said," he said.

They considered everything — expert evidence, character witnesses and the testimony of Woomer and the Weavers.

After seven days of testimony, closing arguments from opposing attorneys and final instructions in the law, deliberations began.

And the first matter to be discussed, the juror said, was the Weavers.

"All 12 of us believed that they were not just good parents, but exemplary parents," he said.

Both parents testified about renovations they had made to their home to make it handicapped accessible, special vans and equipment they bought and a trust fund they established to provide for Brent's future financial needs.

Both parents fought back tears as they described including Brent in every family activity, from outings to the beach and restaurants, to attending church, school and sporting events.

"The love these two parents had for this child and their other two sons is a wonder to behold," the juror said.

Second, the juror said, they considered Brent Weaver.

"This was not just 'a being,' " the juror said. "This was a loving, vibrant young man, and he was an important part of his family.

"He would react with joy when his father came home. He could indicate 'yes' or 'no' with the raising and lowering of his eyes. He loved music.

"He was loved and treasured," the juror said.

"The Weavers were not responsible" for their son's death, the juror said they all concluded.

"And not just beyond a reasonable doubt, but beyond any doubt," the juror said. "I believe that to my core. We all believed that to our soul."

Defense attorneys subtly suggested perhaps Carol Weaver, overwhelmed by her son's needs, gave the child morphine.

Morphine, they suggested, which she could have stolen during Brent's hospitalization at the Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Del., two months before his death.

That could not have happened, the jury concluded.

"Morphine is a narcotic, powerful and dangerous, that's kept locked up like Fort Knox," the juror said. "There is no chance, zero chance.

"It's an impossibility," the juror said, that Carol Weaver was responsible for the morphine. "Beyond any doubt. Zero."

After the trial, jurors learned that Mark and Carol Weaver had both passed lie detector tests conducted during the investigation. Such tests are inadmissible in court.

"And the mother," the juror said, "she wanted some closure, she wanted the truth."

Woomer, too, was viewed by the jury as a kind and caring person.

"We believe she is a good person. We listened to her fellow churchgoers. We heard them. We heard her character witnesses.

"We poured our heart and soul into this," the juror said. "There were ample tears. We felt for her, we really did.

"But look at the evidence."

And the law they were sworn to uphold.

The choices

First-degree murder is defined by law as the specific intent to kill and one that's done willfully, deliberately, with premeditation and with malice.

"We eliminated that immediately," the juror said.

"None of us saw that. She had no plan to kill that child," he added, "no intent to kill that child."

Involuntary manslaughter is defined as reckless or grossly negligent conduct, resulting in the death of another person.

In weighing involuntary manslaughter, the juror said, they "began by taking morphine out of the equation."

Woomer testified that Carol Weaver told her that other than making Brent comfortable when needed, she was not to sit in the child's first-floor bedroom or disturb him in any way.

"Regardless of what the mother's instructions were," the juror said, under nursing rules "she was to check on that child every hour."

Woomer's timeline of events changed, the juror said, from her nursing notes on the night of the child's death, to what she told police later, to her testimony on the witness stand.

"She didn't check on the child every hour," the juror said. "She said from 1:30 to 2:45 a.m. he might have been dead.

"You go in there, adjust his sheets, and you aren't going to feel if he's alive?

"She was a nurse, and he was a patient under her care.

"She had a stethoscope around her neck," he said. "That is reckless disregard of a human life.

"So now, there's manslaughter, without the morphine," he said.

Third-degree murder is defined, by law, as a killing done with malice "if the perpetrator's actions show her wanton and willful disregard of an unjustified and extremely high risk that her conduct would result in death or serious bodily injury to another."

To convict someone of third-degree murder, the judge instructed, prosecutors must prove "she took action while consciously, knowingly, disregarding the most serious risk she was creating," and by ignoring that risk, "she demonstrated her extreme indifference to the value of human life."

"This," the juror said, "was the hard part."

The morphine

"The gray area," the juror explained, "is where did the morphine came from?"

Woomer testified that one month before Brent's death, she cared for two terminally ill children, giving them morphine every few hours as prescribed.

Both children died of natural causes.

"She's giving them morphine," the juror said. "A magical drug for those poor babies who were in pain. She followed the instructions, but hospice instructions (when patients are terminally ill) are very different.

"The majority of us had experience with hospice and knew medications are handled very differently."

The mission of hospice is "to make the journey as peaceful as possible," the juror said, just like the morphine Woomer gave "those poor babies."

"Her ex-husband's testimony," saying that he had seen vials, syringes, and pills in Woomer's home during the weeks before Brent's death, "had some credibility.

"She admitted to having vials and loaded syringes in her home, in her underwear drawer," the juror said. "And she had access to morphine.

"If you've given a child morphine against orders, acting on your own volition, isn't that wanton disregard of human life?

"If someone gave my child morphine without any doctors orders," the juror said, shaking his head sadly.

The amount found in Brent's body was described as four times a lethal dose. "It was a huge amount," the juror said.

The jury, in trying to make sense of the amount of morphine found in the boy's body, discussed the experts' testimony at length.

Dr. Michael Baden, an expert forensic pathologist hired by the defense, said "it wasn't that large of an amount."

"But to the average child, it was a lot," the juror said.

"Is it possible she made a mistake? In the dark?"

Dr. Robert Middleberg and Dr. Edward Barbieri, experts for the prosecution, "made it very clear there was a short window of time," from when the morphine was administered until death occurred.

Prosecutors theorized that Woomer administered the morphine through a port in the tubing that ran from the feeding bag into the boy's stomach.

Woomer testified that after Weaver was taken to the hospital, she discarded items left by the medics and a portion of tubing.

"Just an IV push through that little port," the juror said, "the little port that was missing."

The law

There were additional legal tenets to support the jury's decision.

Under the law, the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt does not mean beyond all doubt.

"Trying to piece all the evidence together, you're not going to have 100 percent," the juror said.

Under the law, an adult who has sole care of a child at the time of his death can be held responsible.

Woomer testified she saw no one else come downstairs after Carol Weaver went upstairs to bed.

Under the law, use of a deadly weapon can be considered circumstantial evidence of malice.

If the jury believed morphine was a deadly weapon, as it was used in this case, then it can infer Woomer acted with malice.

And malice under the law, the judge explained, does not mean simply hatred, spite, or ill-will.

Malice, as it relates to third-degree murder, is defined as a "wanton and willful disregard for human life."

The judge has ordered a background investigation before he sentences Woomer this spring.

Under the standard range of the state sentencing guidelines, Woomer possibly faces at least six to 20 years in prison.

The verdict

"None of us wanted to get to murder three," the juror said. "We all felt the pain of what this means. We all felt empathy for her.

"This isn't robbing a bank," the juror said. "This is a nurse, losing her livelihood, losing everything.

"She had a broken family, two children, she was trying to make ends meet.

"She wanted to give a boy, who was restless and uncomfortable, a good night's sleep. … She knows the powers of this drug.

"The motive? She wanted to ease his discomfort. It's not a complicated motive, she just wanted him to get some rest. And she made a mistake on the dosage.

"There were many tears," the juror said. "But that's what we believed happened.

"It was very, very painful to follow the law," the juror said, but "we were doing our duty and following the rules of the law.

"We were all committed that we would deliberate as long as necessary, until we came to a decision we all believed in and could live with.

"Nobody was looking to get out. Nobody put pressure on anybody.

"We were told we were not to take the sentence into account, but we knew what murder three meant.

"None of us wanted to see her punished with multiple years in state prison.

"We were all profoundly affected by the last two weeks. … It was heart-wrenching.

"I kept thinking about that boy. He was happy. He was loved. … And he was taken away from his family that loved him.

"We tried to do our duty to the fullest in following the instructions we had and do exactly as we were told.

"We poured our heart and soul into it … tried to make sense of it and do our job, following the law.

"There's no winner here. The boy's gone. A woman is facing a long jail term.

"Only, we all remember this young boy," the juror said, who obviously had "a special place in people's hearts."

jkelley@lnpnews.com