HOUSTON – A jury found a teenage girl not guilty of murder Monday in the shooting death of her father.
The girl was accused of shooting her father while he was sleeping back in 2009. She was 12 years old at the time.
"It was very scary," the girl’s mother said outside the courtroom. "Now, I get to take her home."
Her daughter cried as the verdict was read.
The defense had argued that the girl shot her dad after years of physical and sexual abuse, and that her father had threatened her again that day.
Defense attorneys said the last straw was when the father allegedly walked into the bathroom while the girl was taking a bath and threatened her after she yelled at him to get out.
They said the shooting happened a short while after that incident.
Prosecutors told the jury it should not base its decision on sympathy, and that the use of deadly force was not murder only if the girl was in immediate danger at the time of the shooting.
The prosecution argued that the girl was not abused and that she just felt her dad was too strict.
The jury had been deadlocked since last week.
"That jury had 12 poker faces," said Wendi Akins Pastorini, the girl’s attorney. "We could not tell from looking at them which direction they were going."
Juror Yvette Cardenas said she and seven of her peers felt the girl wasn’t guilty, but four others felt there was not enough evidence of abuse – and that the girl was responsible.
"It was just very hard," Cardenas said. "We had some people that agreed and some that didn’t agree. And trying to change their mind was very hard."
But apparently, she said, the other jurors had a change of heart over the weekend, leading to the verdict Monday afternoon.
Still, two alternate jurors were skeptical about the final verdict as they left the courtroom.
"There was no proof she had been sexually abused," said Pat Schaper, one of the alternate jurors. "There was no proof she had been physically abused."
According to Cardenas, the jury didn’t feel there was enough evidence to prove the sexual abuse allegations. But she said the past history of other physical violence led jurors to conclude that the girl had feared for her life.
Back in the neighborhood where the shooting happened, residents were relieved Monday that the trial was finally over.
One of those residents, Angela Fasty, said she will never forget what she saw the night before the shooting.
"She had came over. She was crying. It was late hours. It was me and my dad sitting out in the front yard," Fasty recalled. After Fasty’s father cut the conversation short, she watched as the teen walked away. "She walked down the street, she kept walking around, and the next morning, she shot her dad."
Fasty said she was glad that the teen’s ordeal was finally over.
"I’m so glad she got out. He deserved it," she said.
