Although the jury did not convict Foster for murdering Bobbi, they all believed that he did murder her. Earl Gray, Foster's defense attorney, stood outside of the courthouse after the verdict was read and he told local reporters that the jury concluded that Bobbi "committed suicide". Apparently, Gray should have conferred with the jurors before making such a bold, cold hearted, and false declaration. Below, are messages we have received from some of the jurors. As you will see, the jurors do not believe that Bobbi committed suicide!
"juror Minneapolis, MN, USA 07/29 I hope this will give you some idea of why we decided what we did. We never thought that Aaron was innocent, but we couldn't prove guilt by the information we had at the time. I love you guys and please know that Barbara is looking down on you all! "
"juror Minneapolis, MN, USA 07/29 I continue to pray for your family and please know that unless Aaron begs for his Creator's forgiveness, he will one day be judged far worse than he was last week."
"juror Minneapolis, MN, USA 07/29 I was a juror on this case as well. I am sorry that we could not have come to a different verdict on this case so that you all could finally have some peace. We did the best with the information that was given to us."
" Minneapolis, MN, USA 07/25 If you had looked over at the jury box as the verdict was read you would have seen many of us in tears because we so badly wanted to put it to rest. I am sorry for the way it ended but we had to follow the law and not our hearts.
" Minneapolis, MN, USA 07/25 To the Winn Family, I was a juror at the state vs. Aaron Foster trial. Our Statement of not guilty was not to say that Aaron didn' t murder Barbara. We all believed in our hearts that he did it but could not prove it and therefore had to say not guilty. "
"Jurors in Aaron Foster trial say they thought he did it but the evidence wasn't strong enough to convict"
By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
Article Last Updated: 08/06/2008 11:58:02 PM CDT
After all the evidence was presented, all the arguments made, it was up to five women and seven men to decide: Would they send a man to prison or break the hearts of a dead woman's family?
In the end, cool deliberation, not emotions, prevailed, and they brought in a verdict of not guilty in the case of Aaron Walter Foster — accused of killing his girlfriend, Barbara Winn, 27 years ago.
But several members of the jury told the Pioneer Press that the consensus was Foster was guilty — prosecutors just didn't have the goods to prove it.
"We were sorry about the verdict, but it was the only one we could come to with the evidence we were presented," said Tom, the jury foreman. "Everybody on the jury had a tear in their eye."
It would have been easier, another said, if so much time had not passed since Winn was shot in the chest in the bedroom of her Maplewood home in 1981.
But the jurors were forced to go with what they had, the other juror said. And the decision was difficult.
"We didn't follow our hearts," she said. "We followed the law."
The jurors spoke on condition that their full names, or their last names, not be used. They talked of being intimidated by Winn's family, many of whom cried, wailed and shouted in anger when the verdict was read in Ramsey County District Court on July 23.
Afterward, a sheriff's deputy escorted each juror to his or her car. In one case, a juror went to a parking garage with the judge, the court
reporter and a deputy. He had seen one man with a bandana across his nose and mouth, he said. The deputy and court reporter then drove him to his car, and he didn't go directly home, he said.
Patty Bruce, Winn's sister-in-law, said after the verdict that the family was not angry with the jurors. The jurors just didn't have all the information they needed, she said, because significant evidence was excluded.
The interviews with jurors took place more than a week after they delivered their verdict, in part because the judge asked the Pioneer Press to submit an affidavit requesting juror information.
MISSING EVIDENCE
Winn was 35 when she died. She had been dating Foster, now 56, and witnesses said she broke up with him the night she was shot, telling him to go home and pack his bags.
They had a fight shortly after midnight May 8, and her three children testified they heard yelling, sounds of a struggle and then a pop. They went into Winn's bedroom to find Foster running out and their mother slumped against a wall, bleeding.
The defense argued that Winn had shot herself.
Foster was not charged with the crime until last year, when Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher was running for re-election against former St. Paul Police Chief Bill Finney, who had been a close friend of Foster's.
By that time, nearly all the physical evidence in the case had disappeared — including the gun and the shirt and jacket Foster had been wearing. No gunshot residue had been found on Foster's hands, though he had ample opportunity to wash it off. Residue was on Winn's right hand.
The missing evidence was a constant theme in deliberations, said Tom, the foreman.
If jurors had had some evidence from the gun, some DNA or the gunshot residue, they could have convicted Foster, Tom said.
Jurors also were troubled by the question of who came to Winn's house first, Tom said. That point was never discussed at trial.
Jurors said testimony from people at the bar where Winn and Foster had been in the hours before the shooting hurt, rather than helped, the prosecution.
Winn's brother, Calvin Bruce, said he never saw Winn with a drink in her hand. Tests later showed her blood-alcohol level at 0.13 (the law at the time presumed impaired driving at 0.10). Winn's sister said Foster punched Winn in the stomach. The bar owner said he saw Foster slap her. A friend thought Foster had slapped Winn by the way she held her face after she returned from talking with him. But she did not see the slap.
"All the different stories — it's like they were all trying to protect her somehow," Tom said.
Foster's attorney, Earl Gray, said his client was innocent and it was unfair to Foster to publicize the jurors' behind-the-scenes deliberations after they delivered a not-guilty verdict.
But he said it sounded as if they followed the rules of evidence and the law.
"I'm proud of them for doing the right thing," Gray said.
A contact number for Foster could not be located, and his attorney did not provide one.
'JUST DRAINING'
A juror named Scott said the whole experience was "just draining."
He took copious notes during the trial and referred to them as the group deliberated. They discussed again and again the evidence they had, he said.
The idea that Winn committed suicide "didn't make sense, obviously," he said. But Winn was drunk, tests showed, and they could have struggled over the gun.
"We kept digging through there, trying to come up with something we could come up with, and we couldn't," he said. "We think he did it. We felt bad."
Emily Gurnon can be reached at 651-228-5522.
"RESPONSIBLE" MURDERER!
ACCORDING TO HIS ATTORNEY, FOSTER DID THE "RESPONSIBLE THING"..."HE REMOVED THE BULLETS" FROM THE MURDER WEAPON BEFORE HE THREW IT OUT OF THE CAR WINDOW ON HIS WAY TO 7-11.
