Date Published:
Fri, 02/17/2006

Juror No. 4’s Boyfriend Arrested After Shooting

POSTED: 6:10 pm EST November 17, 2006
UPDATED: 7:03 pm EST November 17, 2006

She was known as Juror No. 4 and her dismissal from the Cape Cod jury that eventually found Christopher McCowen guilty of murder raised more questions in a case already full of strange turns.

Newscenter 5’s Jorge Quiroga talked with the juror’s lawyer, who offered a glimpse into what went on in the jury room.

When the verdict finally came down, an emotional juror who was removed from the panel two days before McCowen was found guilty watched from her lawyer’s office.

“She was more surprised not what the jury said, it was my impression in reading her, that they returned a verdict,” said attorney Drew Segadelli.

The former juror is Rachel Huffman, a 22-year-old switchboard operator at Falmouth Town Hall.

Segadelli said his client was not “a hold out” in the previously deadlocked jury.

“I can say there were factions suggesting guilty and others suggesting not guilty, and there were some on the proverbial bubble. I place her there,” said Segadelli.

Huffman became a legal distraction in the high-profile case after her boyfriend, Kyle Kicks, the father of her baby, was arrested during a weekend shooting in Falmouth.

Their phone conversations led to her dismissal as a juror.

“Now she is being taken through the mud. She is doing her civic duty. She was invested emotionally, besides her time, better than six weeks. She was deliberating,” Segadelli said.

Huffman has not returned to work. The personnel director at the town hall said she is on vacation.

McCowen was sentenced to life in prison for the 2002 murder of Cape Cod fashion writer Christa Worthington.

Article taken from http://www.thebostonchannel.com/