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McCord juror tells of anguish Printer friendly page Print This
By Sara Olken
Miami Herald
Monday, May 16, 2005

A juror in the Weston murder case said the panel followed the law and not their hearts when they acquitted the victim’s husband.

solkon@herald.com

All 12 jurors believed that Maxwell McCord strangled his wife to death in their Weston home four years ago. But a lack of evidence gave them no choice but to acquit him, one juror said Saturday.

“Everybody thought he was guilty,” said Raymond Suden Sr., a retired truck driver who deliberated the case for 16 hours over two days with 11 others before voting to acquit McCord late Friday night.

“The police did a hell of a bad job. They didn’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.

In the end, the panel’s doubt centered on Marie Noguera’s time of death and whether McCord was home when she was killed.

Noguera, 31, a Hollywood Hills High School Spanish teacher, was found dead Aug. 2, 2001, in the upstairs study of the couple’s home in the gated Savanna development.

A telephone cord was cinched neatly around her neck, and she’d been severely beaten in the head.

McCord told the Broward Sheriff’s Office that the couple and their 3-year-old daughter had dinner at home, then drove to the Broward Mall in Plantation about 8 p.m. He said Noguera returned to the car because she had forgotten her purse. When she didn’t return, McCord said he took a cab home, found her body and called police.

“If they could have pinpointed her death before 8 p.m., we would have convicted,” Suden, 69, said in a phone interview Saturday.

Prosecutor Brian Cavanagh argued that the contents of her stomach proved that Noguera was dead when McCord and their daughter left home for the mall.

But Dr. Ron Wright, former chief medical examiner for Broward County, testifying for the defense, cast doubt on the reliability of that reading. He said Noguera suffered from hypothyroidism and argued that her medication could have slowed the digestion of her last meal, which would make her time of death much later.

Certainly, McCord’s story seemed improbable:

Someone abducted his wife from a parking lot near the mall, drove her in her own car back home, murdered her, then drove back to the mall to ditch the car.

“Nobody else could have killed that poor, poor girl.” Suden said. “He was guilty.”

And for 16 hours, the eight women and four men on the jury deliberated that point.

By Friday evening, 10 were ready to acquit and focused on persuading the last two hold-outs—Suden among them—that the state had not proved McCord’s guilt.

Once the last two were on board, the group held hands and recited the Serenity Prayer. One juror could be heard sobbing from outside the jury room.

Four other jurors contacted Saturday wouldn’t comment on the case. The seven others couldn’t be reached; nor could the prosecutors.

Noguera’s relatives flew home to Puerto Rico on Saturday.

“We are heartbroken and are just in disbelief,” said Marie Cristina Gonzalez Noguera, a cousin of the slain woman. “Yesterday and today are just like reliving her murder again.”

For now, Marie Noguera’s parents, Juan Noguera and Diana Osuna de Noguera, have custody of Andrea McCord, who is now 6.

McCord granted the Nogueras custody while he was in jail awaiting trial, but he never severed his parental rights. A court would likely have to rule on custody if the two sides can’t agree.

Before the verdict, the couple indicated that they do not want McCord to raise her.

McCord, 39, said Saturday he hopes to be reunited with Andrea as soon as he can.

“My only concern is my daughter,” he said in an interview at the Miami office of his attorney, Jeanne Baker. He is staying with friends in Broward.

It remains to be seen whether McCord will be able to cash in on his wife’s $350,000 life insurance policy, taken out weeks before her death. And the Nogueras could sue McCord for wrongful death in civil court.

“I am innocent,” McCord said. “I am extremely saddened that the jury didn’t think that.”

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/
local/states/florida/counties/broward_county/
11650197.htm?source=rss&channel=
miamiherald_broward_county

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