HOULTON, Maine — An alternate juror in the trial of a Maine man accused of killing a boy, the boy’s father and another man was dismissed Wednesday after trying to shake the prosecutor’s hand and telling him, “You are doing a good job.”
The juror was given the boot a day after a Standish man was charged with jury tampering for telling one of the jurors to “hang” the defendant.
Thayne Ormsby, who’s using an insanity defense, is charged in the fatal stabbings of Jeffrey Ryan, his 10-year-old son, Jesse, and a family friend, Jason Dehahn, in June 2010 in Amity, in northern Maine.
After being dismissed, the juror told WABI-TV that he simply wanted to congratulate Deputy Attorney William Stokes for doing a good job.
The murder trial resumed after the judge rejected a defense request to question jurors and remaining alternates to see if they were tainted.
The day before, a Standish man who was related to one of the victims held the door open for one of the jurors, and allegedly urged the juror to “hang the bastard.” State police arrested the man on a jury-tampering charge, which carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.
On Wednesday, before the juror was dismissed, an audiotape was played of the first police interview after Ormsby left Maine and went to New Hampshire.
Ormsby told investigators that he left Maine to look for work. He also told them that the daughter of the couple he’d been staying with in Maine theorized that drug dealers or a biker gang might be responsible for the killings.
On Thursday, jurors will see a videotape that shows Ormsby in a second interview with investigators. Stokes told jurors in his opening statement that Ormsby confessed on the videotape before being arrested.
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