Couey found guilty of Lunsford's murder
By Susannah A. Nesmith

McClatchy Newspapers

(MCT)

MIAMI - No one in the courtroom, not even John Evander Couey, reacted Wednesday when a Miami-Dade jury convicted him of kidnapping, raping and murdering 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford.

For most people there, the trial is only half finished.

Couey is facing the death penalty and the judge, the attorneys, the jury and Jessica's family will all be back next week for the sentencing phase of the trial.

"We're almost there," Mark Lunsford, Jessica's father, said after the court adjourned. "It ain't over yet."

The evidence against Couey was overwhelming, including DNA that proved he had raped Jessica in his bedroom. His attorneys didn't even present much of a defense, a tactic experts say makes sense because Couey is facing the death penalty.

"Without saying it, they conceded the guilt-innocence issue and tried to position themselves to have a shot at saving this guy's life," said veteran defense attorney Milton Hirsch. "They didn't antagonize the jury. They didn't insult the jury."

Couey, a convicted sex offender, confessed to detectives that in February 2005 he broke into Jessica's home in Homosassa, Fla., lured her out of her bedroom, took her to his home around the corner and raped her. Then he said he put the little girl in two garbage bags and buried her alive in his back yard.

She died clutching the stuffed dolphin her father had won for her the week before at a fair.

The jury never heard Couey's taped confession because Circuit Judge Ric Howard threw it out: Citrus County, Fla., deputies violated Couey's rights when they questioned him after he had asked for an attorney.

The case was moved to Miami because too many people in Central Florida said they knew of the confession.

But prosecutors had the DNA - Jessica's in blood found on Couey's mattress and Couey's found in semen mixed with the blood.

And they had evidence of an even more horrific crime - little Jessica was buried alive according to the medical examiner. After Couey covered her body with dirt, she poked her fingers out of the garbage bags.

As court got under way Wednesday morning, prosecutor Pete Magrino propped up the picture that ran in newspapers and on television across the country: a smiling Jessica wearing a pink hat.

Then Magrino showed the jury a picture no one wanted to see. This one, taken a month later, showed Jessica's decomposed body.

"As a result of what the defendant did to Jessie, that's what she looked like. . . That's a photo of Jessie in death," Magrino told the jury doing his closing argument.

Twice he pointed out that Couey tricked Jessica into coming with him by telling her "I'm taking you to your father."

Magrino knelt down in front of the jury to show how she was stuffed her into the garbage bags.

"Little 9-year-old Jessie suffocated in those bags," he said.

Defense attorney Dan Lewan spoke to the jury for only 15 minutes, urging them not to let the prosecution play on their emotions.

"The government started the case with the lady who cried and the family in a clear attempt to appeal to your emotions," Lewan said, referring to a family friend and Jessica's father and grandmother. All three testified the first day of the trial.

He questioned the investigation done by Citrus County sheriff's deputies, saying they pinned the highly-publicized crime on Couey because they were under pressure to solve it.

Lewan called the investigation "a one dimensional quest to get John Couey."

"They have not and will not consider any other goal," he said.

But Lewan didn't offer an alternative theory of how Jessica was killed and never claimed that his client was innocent.

The jury deliberated four hours before announcing the verdict.

Citrus County State Attorney Brad King, who came to Miami-Dade to observe the trial, said the decision didn't surprise him.

"Part of the reality of jury trials is the facts you have to work with," King said. "We had the facts on our side."

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