Deliberations called careful, methodical

The nine women and three men deliberated methodically before condemning Sampson, Dever said in an extensive interview at her home south of Boston, just hours after the verdict was returned.

"I can sleep at night with the decision we've made," she said. "The only thing that will cause any problems with sleep will be trying to get out of my head the pain the three victims must have felt when their lives were being taken. That will keep me up at night."

Dever was the only juror contacted last night who agreed to be interviewed, and the 38-year-old employee of the regional office of the US Environmental Protection Agency said the panel wanted people to know their decision was not driven by emotion or hurried in the 10 hours of deliberations over three days.

"There was discussion and disagreement on some of the factors, but we never got so heated that we didn't listen to one another," she said. The jurors looked carefully for evidence to support leniency for Sampson, but she said they found little.

"Every single juror felt that the weight of the aggravating circumstances significantly outweighed the mitigating circumstances," she said. "We all individually concluded the same thing. There was no question for any one of us."

The evidence against Sampson, Dever said, was compelling. "No one should have to die the way Philip, and Jonathan, and Robert did," she said, listing Sampson's victims, Philip McCloskey, Jonathan Rizzo, and Robert "Eli" Whitney in the order in which they were killed.

Also persuasive, said Dever was evidence that Sampson had several opportunities to surrender to authorities, but chose not to.

During the trial, there was evidence that as Sampson attacked McCloskey, he looked up and saw a Weymouth police cruiser nearby, but continued in his deadly assault on the elderly man.

"It could have ended at any time," she said.

Sampson's lawyers had presented evidence that Sampson suffers from bipolar disorder and had a troubled childhood, but Dever said it did not sway the jury.

"We would have gladly found that he was mentally ill, if we felt the proof was there. . . . We all looked for it. It just wasn't there," she said.

Dever said that the countless hours she had spent on the case since the jury was selected in late October had not left her with any desire to address Sampson.

"I don't have anything to say to him," she said. "I don't think he's a monster. He's like no human being that I hope I ever have to know about or come into contact with."

The jury decided he should be executed, she said, but the panel never discussed the manner or the the cost of keeping an inmate locked up for years.

Instead, she said, they talked about "what seemed to be the most fitting" sentence, and unanimously concluded that Sampson deserved "the harshest penalty available."

"It was just a cumulative picture that made our decision on the death penalty right for us," she said.

None of the jurors was concerned about the impending Christmas holiday, she said.

The jurors agreed that they wanted to publicly offer sympathies to the victims' families, she said.

"We just want to express our condolences to the families of Philip, and Jonathan, and Robert. Our thoughts and prayers are going to be with them. Every one of these jurors are going to be thinking of those families and their loved ones for a long time."

Globe correspondent Jared Stearns contributed to this report.