No Regrets

wasn’t strong enough to convince all twelve that she was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. However, on Sunday, they had discovered what they called their “smoking gun.” It was an ad Ruth had placed in the paper on August 13, 1980—one day before August 14, the date Ruth testified that Rolf left.
    Ruth had advertised their house for sale. “If she was expecting him to come back, what was he coming back to?”
    By Sunday afternoon, the jurors had gone from five to seven in favor of conviction, and then they had come down to one juror who was holding out for acquittal. They had dealt with the question of the unscarred tub and the element of premeditation. It was the fact that Ruth had apparently shot not once, but twice, that led them to decide Rolf’s murder was premeditated, if only during a few seconds. Ruth had told so many people so many times how easily she could shoot Rolf. And the jury found that she had, indeed, planned ahead of time to kill her husband. If she had shot only once, they felt, premeditation had not been proven. But according to Paul, she had ordered their brother Robert to hold Rolf while she went to her bedroom to retrieve her .38, and then she had shot him twice.
    But it had taken the newspaper ad to convince the final juror not to vote for acquittal.
    Judge Bibb set January 13, 1986, as Ruth Neslund’s sentencing date. He would later say that if it had been up to him alone, he would have come back with a second-degree murder conviction. But Fred Weedon and Ruth Neslund had chosen a trial by jury.
    •  •  •
    Although they had been locked together while they deliberated, most of the jurors weren’t ready to go home yet. Some of them had missed the last ferries home and had to stay overnight in the same two-story motel where they had been sequestered. But others stayed because they needed to talk. Even those who lived in Friday Harbor were reluctant to leave.
    They gathered in one room to watch the television news flashes about their verdict, and then longer coverage. They had bonded during the long trial, and they still needed to talk about different aspects of the case that had troubled them.
    They talked far into the wee hours of the morning. At length, this experience was over for them, although they would never forget it.

Twenty-three
    The day after the verdict came in, even though the long trial was over and Christmas was little more than a week away, there were still surprises. One of the male jurors contacted Fred Weedon and arranged to meet him at a Friday Harbor tavern on December 16, the day after the verdict’s announcement. Bruce Cohen said now that he had misunderstood the evidence on one of the want ads Ruth had placed in mid-August 1980.
    Cohen told Weedon that he had seen the newspaper ad that showed Ruth was selling a three-bedroom house within a week of her husband’s disappearance. He believed it was her own home that she was selling, and now realized that it was not, but only a friend’s. Ruth had only inserted her own phone number in the ad.
    “If I’d known that,” Cohen told Weedon, “it would have been a hung jury.”
    But the state had never said that Ruth was selling her own home, nor had Weedon offered evidence that she was not. Judicial precedent would not call for a new trial or a mistrial because of the manner in which a juror’s mind reached an opinion. Not unless there was jury misconduct. Legal experts pointed out that there must be some finality in trials. If jurors’ mental processes were to be examined endlessly, trials could go on forever. Whatever jurors thinkor view inside the jury room is permitted, but jurors cannot do investigations on their own—such as visiting crime scenes by themselves, talking to witnesses, or looking at exhibits that have not been admitted. That would be outside the pale.
    Ruth had quickly put a number of items up for sale after Rolf left, but not her house. Not until she advertised it in the
Wall Street Journal
in May 1981, after Ray Clever and Greg Doss had begun to question her.
    Juror Cohen’s second thoughts did not lead to a new trial.
    On January 13, 1986, after spending the holidays in jail, Ruth Neslund was sentenced to life in prison. While prosecutors argued for a thirty-year minimum, Judge Bibb said he would recommend a minimum of only twenty years. Even with time off for good behavior, Ruth would have to serve thirteen years and seven months. At sixty-five and in poor health, it was not