Gary Lee Sampson juror: ‘It's about justice'

BOSTON — Less than one month after convicted spree killer Gary Lee Sampson was sentenced to death, a juror is speaking about his experience deciding the fate of another man.

Greg Gadbois was juror number 8 in the trial, said his sole mission as he went to federal court every day for 10 weeks was to provide justice.

"It's about justice, it's trying to say, does this deserve this,” he said.

Sampson killed three people in Massachusetts and New Hampshire in 2001 and had previously pleaded guilty and been sentenced to death, but after evidence that a juror in the original trial was untruthful his case was sent for a new sentencing trial.

“The jury was very good, I was very impressed,” he said.

The jury began deliberating on Thursday, Jan. 5 and Gadbois said they had agreed on the sentence the next day, but wanted the weekend to process the decision.

"For me to really think carefully, I have to write,” he said.

As the verdict was handed it, it was accompanied by a note from Gadbois.

"I don't believe that that trial should've been in a federal court,” he said.

Gadbois says his thoughts on that didn't belong in the verdict, since it had nothing to do with the case, but he felt passionate enough about the issue to insert the note in the juror packet.

“Whether Sampson rots in jail or is executed, on a scale of things, I care a lot more why the federal government is undercutting the normal governance of state government,” he said. “I was sort of the problem child on this jury.”

All 12 jurors agreed that Sampson deserved death for the carjacking and murder of 19-year-old Jonathon Rizzo.

“He explicitly said it was premeditated, ‘I had decided to do it,’” Gadbois said.

But the verdict for Sampson’s first carjacking and murder victim, 69-year-old Phillip McClosky, was split 11-1.

"I think it wasn't nearly the premeditated thing it was more of a spontaneous, at least its reasonable doubt to think that,” Gadbois said.

The third victim, 58-year-old Robert Whitney, was killed at his New Hampshire home; a crime Sampson also confessed to committing.

For Gadbois, the decision came down to justice, and the matter of intent versus instinct.

"What is the proper response to this to this crime?" he said.

Cox Media Group